

4>^ 



'ITHO' 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



Shelf^S 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 






^ -^^' 



WHAT WE REALLY KNOW 



ABOUT 



SHAKESPEARE. 



BY 

MRS. CAROLINE HEALEY^ DALL, 



AUTHOR OF HISTORICAL PICTURES RETOUCHED ; 



THE COLLEGE, 



MARKET, AND COURT;" "EGYPT, A PRESENTATION;" 

" LETTERS HOME FROM COLORADO, UTAH, AND 

CALIFORNIA," ETC. 




7 ..^ 



^- 



"Alle that he doth write 
Is pure his owne." 
' Leonard Diggbs, 1640. 



BOSTON: "^^^^^A, 
ROBERTS BROTHERS. 

1886. 



\:l 



N \ 






Copyright^ 1885^ 
By Roberts Brothers. 



John Wilson and Son, Cambridge. 



PREFACE. 



The cikcumstances which led to the manufac- 
ture OF THIS Handbook. 

A FEW years since a gentleman of some scholarly 
reputation was asked to deliver an address, on 
Shakespeare's birthday, before a Shakespeare club 
of which I had long been a member. He spoke 
before two or three hundred people. He repre- 
sented Shakespeare as " vilely born," — the son of a 
butcher, apprenticed to a butcher, without educa- 
tion, a pot-house brawler, loafing about with poach- 
ers, until he got himself into such serious discredit 
that, after an enforced early marriage, he was obliged 
to fly from his native town. He then proceeded to 
glorify that Divine Spark of Genius, given to its 
possessor without regard to his deserts, which had 
set this pot-house brawler above all mortal men. 
What was my amazement to find that among his 
audience no one beside myself was prepared to 
question any of these statements. \ 



IV PREFACE. 

As the public discussion of the Baconian origin 
of Shakespeare's Plays has proceeded, the principal 
argument of its supporters has been found in our 
ignorance of Shakespeare's life, and in the assump- 
tion that most of the above statements are true. 
Whoever proves them to be mainly unfounded will 
therefore help to form a rational public opinion. 

During the last winter I listened to three differ- 
ent addresses from the author of " Atlantis," who 
thinks he has discovered a cipher in the First 
Folio, and that the story concealed by this cipher 
claims the Plays of Shakespeare as the work of 
Lord Bacon ! . 

Mr. Donelly had a large audience, and on one 
of these occasions he addressed a literary club, 
and was answered at some length by two or three 
fair Shakespeare scholars. He stated in substance 
that Shakespeare was low-born, vilely bred, led an 
obscure life, and was a man who might easily be 
hired to cloak the personality of a superior who 
feared political disgrace. 

Many of Mr. Donelly's statements ha,ve been 
long ago as effectually refuted as the story of 
Shakespeare's relationship to Sir William Dav- 
enant; but I observed that when his opponents 
rose, no one of them was prepared to controvert his 
statements with hard facts, but each spoke in an 



PEEFACE. V 

indefinite and weakly way, chiefly about his own 
opinions. 

To bring forward these facts became my duty 
on the 23d of April, 1885, when I was asked to ad- 
dress the Shakespeare Club in the city of Washing- 
ton. I care very little for adult people who are ig- 
norant of what is now well known to every student 
of Shakespeare. It is true that of the books put 
forth by Mr. Halliwell-Phillips, Dr. Ingleby, and 
Mr. French, only small editions were printed, and 
the volumes are very expensive ; but in this coun- 
try, at least, the many public libraries furnish all 
sincere students with the opportunities needed. 

It was to the young and untaught that I spoke. 
What I said was received with much enthusiasm, 
and I was asked by several of the best-read men 
whether I could not put it into a handbook which 
every child could buy. 

This I am now trying to do. 

1. Shakespeare's origin is said to have been 
obscure. He is sneered at as the son of a butcher. 

I expect to show that his family took root in 
the yeomanry of England, and that on both sides 
it looked back upon a reputable history. 

2. It is stated that his education was deficient, 
that he was taken early from school, and appren- 
ticed to a butcher ! 



VI PEEFACE. 

I expect to show, by the testimony of those who 
knew him, that his education was considered de- 
ficient only in a technical sense ; also that his 
removal from school on account of his father's 
poverty is a deduction from circumstances which 
have been exaggerated ; also that there is no proof 
that he was ever apprenticed to anybody ; while it 
is much more likely to be true " that he under- 
stood Latin pretty well, for he had been in his 
younger dayes a schoolmaster in the countrie," a 
statement made by Aubrey in a manuscript of 
1680, and never before quoted as having signifi- 
cance, so far as I know. 

3. It is stated that his character was low and 
his companions of the baser sort. 

I expect to show that for the age in which he 
lived, his character was remarkable for steadiness, 
moderation, and thrift, and that his intimates, so 
far as known to us, were of the best sort. 

4. It has been stated that he was little known 
to his contemporaries. 

I expect to show that he was widely known and 
much beloved. In a time when there was no 
newspaper and no magazine, when the modern 
"interviewer" had never been heard of. Dr. Ingleby 
finds one hundred and eighty-five references to 
Shakespeare on record within the century, and 



PEEFACE. Vll 

fifty-seven of these were made during his lifetime. 
If we omit the testimony of the newspapers and 
magazines, if we remember how few people of his 
period could read and write, would Tennyson or 
Longfellow make a better showing? 

5. The uncleanness of Stratford is brought for- 
ward in this discussion, as if to sustain the state- 
ment that Shakespeare was of low birth. Without 
pausing to argue the matter, I would suggest, that, 
in the reign of Elizabeth, London was as filthy as 
Stratford. The fresh rushes strewn daily over the 
floors of her Majesty's palace covered the worst 
abominations of the kennel and the pig-sty. If 
Southampton had ever gone down to New Place, 
he would have found nothing to astonish him. 
Among the early settlers of Massachusetts Bay, 
there were many men sprung, like Shakespeare, 
from the ranks of British yeomanry, and others of 
higher estate still, who crossed the ocean in search 
of fresh air and " faire water," where it might be 
possible to rear their infant children. These emi- 
grants came not from Stratford but from Essex, 
Lincoln, !N'orthumberland, and Devon. 

As my outline of the Life of Shakespeare pre- 
tends to small originality, I have not paused to use 
quotation marks even when I use the very words 
of better authorities. My own individual specula- 



Viii PEEFACE. 

tions I hope I have made sufficiently clear. I did 
not consider it necessary to incorporate into the 
Life the appearance in print of every Play. Those 
who desire to follow the public career of the poet 
will find ample material in the noble volumes of 
Halliwell-Phillips. My first object was to give to 
the Life a mortal body ; to show what sort of man 
the poet was as he walked through the world. 

In the Appendix I have desired as far as possible 
to condense and abbreviate whatever I have quoted. 
I frequently reduce a page to a few lines, or a few 
lines to a phrase, but I have had no deliberate in- 
tention of altering words or their spelling. I have 
done this at times involuntarily, to simplify the 
understanding of them for young readers. 

The scholar who for this cause complains of my 
method, will not be the student for whom these 
pages are written. 

Caeoline H. Dall. 



1667 Thirty-First Street, Washington, D. C. 

May, 1885. 



CONTENTS. 



Paob 

An Outline of the Lite of William Shakespeare 13 

The Family of Richard Shakespeare .... 89 

The Family of William Shakespeare 93 

The Personal Character of Shakespeare ... 97 

Delia Bacon 103 

A History op the Accumulations of John and 

William Shakespeare from 1550 to 1616 . 109 

Appendix 121 

The " Centurie of Prayse " 125 

Direct Ascription of Authorship to Shakespeare 137 

Halliwell-Phillips 145 

Contemporary Evidences 148 

Twenty Theatrical Evidences 152 

Note 160 

Domestic Records 163 

Biog-raphical Notices 167 

Records concerning Estates 172 

Note 179 

Conclusion. — New Points 187 

INDEX 193 



AUTHORITIES. 



Charles Knight's Life of Shakespeahe. 

Preface to Theobald's Shakespeare, 1767. 

*' Shaksperiana Genealogica," C. R. French, London. 

"The Centurie of Prayse," C. M. Ingleby, London, 

1874. 
Spedding's Letter to Judge Holmes. 
"Outlines of the Life of Shakspere," by J. 0. Hal- 

liwell-Phillips. Pive Editions, from 1872 to 1885 

inclusive. 



WHAT WE EEALLY KNOW ABOUT 
SHAKESPEAEE. 



WHAT WE REALLY KNOW ABOUT 
SHAKESPEARE. 



AN OUTLINE OF THE LIFE OF WILLIAM 
SHAKESPEARE. 

William Shakespeaee, the poet, was the child 
of Mary Arden and John Shakespeare, both of 
families belonging at that time to the great class 
of agricultural property holders called " yeomanry," 
although both seemed to have retained traditions 
of a higher condition. 

It was claimed by some authorities, as well as by 
John Shakespeare himself, that at the battle of Bos- 
worth, Aug. 22, 1485, an ancestor of his received 
a "coat of armour" for "faithful and approved 
service " to Henry YIL, and was rewarded with 
"lands and tenements." In 1550, sixty-five years 
after this took place, Eichard Shakespeare was liv- 
ing at Snitterfield as the tenant of Robert Arden. 
This was three miles from Stratford, and there 



14 AN OUTLINE OF THE 

lived with him his two sons, Henry and John. 
Henry rented a large farm near Snitterfield church, 
and seems to have been until his death steady and 
well-to-do, — content with his country life. John 
was undoubtedly of other metal, — ambitious, ad- 
venturous, and anxious from the very first to build 
up a family and accumulate real estate. 

On the other side, Eobert Arden's father was 
groom of the chambers to Henry YII. French 
says that he was a favourite and received grants 
of land. Eobert was therefore w^ell endowed. In 
the application for a " coat of armour " he is called 
"Esquire." He had seven daughters, and of these 
Mary, the mother of William Shakespeare, was 
the youngest ; yet for some reason she occupied 
the most prominent position under his will, dated 
Nov. 24, 1556, just a year before her marriage. 
A certain sum of money was given her, and all 
Wilmecote, and the estate called Asbyes, consist- 
ing of fifty-six acres and a house, and the crops 
in the ground. Her sister Alice was a widow, and 
is provided for by a life residence in her father's 
house and certain properties. Mary had also a 
house at Snitterfield near Eichard Shakespeare, who 
was, as we have seen, her father's tenant. It was 
perhaps in matters connected with the manage- 
ment of this farm that she first grew intimate with 



LIFE OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 15 

Jolin Shakespeare. Her father left a small gratuity 
to every householder in the parish of Aston " not 
able to own a team,^' which indicates a man of some 
position. The inventory of his goods, and later 
the inventory of those of his second wife, attest 
the same fact. Tapestries, or " peynted clothes," 
a chafing dish, brooches, eight oxen, two bullocks, 
seven kine, four horses, and three colts, in addition 
to a flock of sheep, indicate luxuries as well as 
comforts. 

In October, 1556, John Shakespeare purchased 
two small freeholds in Stratford, which shows that 
he was himself prosperous, and in fit position to 
marry an heiress like Mary Arden. The marriage 
took place some time in 1557 ; for Joan, the oldest 
child, was born Sept. 15, 1558. 

At this time there were fifteen hundred house- 
holders in Stratford. It was the thirty-seventh 
year of Henry VIII. That John Shakespeare was 
industrious and respected is shown by his rapid 
rise in office. 

In 1557, before his marriage, he was made 
ale-taster ; 

In 1558, a burgess ; 

In 1559, a constable; 

In 1560, an affeeror, or magistrate to impose 
arbitrary sentences; 



16 AN OUTLINE OF THE 

In 1561, a cTaamberlain ; 

111 1562, again a chamberlain; 

In 1565, an alderman ; 

In 1568, the high bayliff or mayor, — an officer 
who held courts in all causes involving amounts of 
less than thirty pounds. 

It will be seen that he passed steadily through 
all the offices in the gift of the town, and a 
single circumstance seems to indicate that he was 
of superior rank to most of the men so serving. 
!N^owhere, in connection with his nomination or 
appointment to these offices, is his vocation des- 
ignated. He is styled " Shakespeare," " Mr. John 
Shakespeare," or "John Shakespeare, yeoman." 
Thus in September, 1567, Eobert Perrot, brewer, 
Mr. John Shakespeare, and Ealph Cawdrey, butcher, 
were nominated for high bayliff. If John Shake- 
speare had been only a butcher or a glover he would 
have been called so ; but here he is " Mr. John 
Shakespeare," and in the legal papers of the period 
he was either " John Shakespeare, Gentleman," or 
"John Shakespeare, yeoman." A yeoman is defined 
by Blackstone as " he who hath free land of 40 
shillings per annum, and who was antiently there- 
by qualified to serve on juries, vote for the knight 
of the shire, and do any other act whereby the 
law requires one that is ' probus et legalis homo.' " 



LIFE OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 17 

When elected alderman in 1565, Shakespeare was 
the only one of the bench to whom no calling is 
attributed. 

Mr. Halliwell-Phillips calls him a glover, on 
the strength of a legal process executed before his 
marriage, the title being given as follows by- 
Mr. French in his " Shaksperiana Genealogica," 
p. 387 : "An action was heard before John Burbage, 
June 17, 1556, against John Shakespeare: Thomas 
Sache de Arschotte in comte Wigorn versus Jo- 
hannem Shakspeare de Stretford in comte War- 
wicki, glover in placito quod reddat in octo libras," 
etc. Mr. French asserts that this is the only in- 
stance in which the term is applied to John Shake- 
speare; but Mr. Halliwell-PhilHps alludes to an 
entry in the Corporation books and a recognizance 
in the Controlment EoU of the twenty-ninth year 
of Elizabeth, making three entries in all, covering 
a period of thirty years. 

John Shakespeare was however primarily, like 
all his kindred, an agriculturist, raising sheep, oxen, 
and horses on his rural properties. Cattle were 
killed, skins were dressed, and wool was baled 
upon his estate, and one of his Stratford houses 
was used as a depot for his products. From 
1557 to 1575 his fortunes seem to have prospered. 
In 1564, when the plague visited Stratford, the 

2 



18 AN OUTLINE OF THE 

Shakespeare family was almost the only one which 
escaped the touch of death. Mr. Shakespeare 
contributed to the relief of the poor and plague- 
stricken in that year, after the fashion of a man of 
substance. His wife had already lost two infant 
girls, probably from the want of proper sanitary 
conditions in the town. She may have learned, 
from that experience, how to protect herself by 
cleanliness or flight. Her exemption is the more 
remarkable because it was in this year that William 
Shakespeare was born. He was born in Henley 
Street, where John Shakespeare seems to have 
owned two contiguous tenements. The late re- 
searches of Mr. Halliwell-Phillips have shown that 
one of these was used by him as a residence, and 
the other, at least on its lower storey, as a shop for 
the sale of wool. The most western was the house 
in which Shakespeare was born ; and the room to 
which this tradition has always clung is the only 
suitable chamber, with a large open fireplace, in 
the tenement. At some very early period, perhaps 
to accommodate the poet's nine brothers and sis- 
ters, doors of interior communication were opened 
in the upper storeys between the wool-shop and 
the house. 

In 1848 this whole birthplace estate was bought 
by subscription, and became the property of the 



LIFE OF WILLI A.M SHAKESPEAEE. 19 

Corporation. This was largely, if not entirely, 
due to the well-sustained efforts of Mr. Halliwell- 
Phillips. 

In March, 1565, John Shakespeare and one of 
his colleagues made up the accounts of the borough 
for the previous year, a work often performed with 
counters and "entered" by professed scriveners. 
He probably showed a capacity for the work, for 
he was employed again the next year, and a sum 
equivalent to thirty pounds of present money was 
paid him by the Corporation. 

In two respects at least this father resembled 
his famous son. He was a good business manager, 
and he was fond of the drama. It was when he 
was mayor that the Queen's players first came to 
Stratford. In those days, when the players entered 
a town they offered an opening entertainment free 
to the people in honor of the chief magistrate, and 
they then received from him whatever gratuity he 
thought fit. In this way, payment was made by 
"Mr. Shakespeare to the ' Queen's players,' " and the 
" Earl of Worcester's players." This taste for the 
drama had doubtless been stimulated by the " Mys- 
teries " performed at Coventry, and by the strolling 
companies of the neighborhood. At all events, it 
was strong enough to be inherited, for not only did 
his son William go upon the stage, but a younger 



20 AN OUTLINE OF THE 

son Edmund ; and one of the sons of his daughter 
Joan, William Hart, became an actor. 

Mr. Halliwell-Phillips says that both Shake- 
speare's parents were wholly illiterate; and he 
doubtless bases this conclusion upon the "mark" 
attached to the signatures of both. I think the 
probabilities are the other way. It is quite possi- 
ble that John Shakespeare was able to make up the 
town accounts without the aid of a scrivener, for 
many persons used a mark at that time as a rapid 
way of making a legal signature. Few persons 
wrote with ease ; the general style of writing re- 
quired slow and patient endeavour, and the same 
person sometimes used two or three kinds of marks. 
In this opinion I am sustained by Lord Campbell, 
and also by many facts in the early history of New 
England. 

In speaking of the poet, Kowe wrote in 1709 : 
" His family were of good figure and fashion then, 
and they are mentioned as gentlemen." 

In October, 1566, Gilbert Shakespeare was born. 
He is said by Mr. Halliwell-Phillips to have gone 
into business in London for a time, but if so, he 
relinquished this when his brother became a land- 
owner, for he was for many years his business 
manager at Stratford. In April, 1569, Joan 
Shakespeare was born, the poet's only sister, for 



LIFE OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEAEE. 21 

whom lie showed such tender consideration in his 
will. A sister Anna and a brother Eichard fol- 
lowed, but Eichard left no descendants, and Anna 
died in infancy. The time of Gilbert's death is 
not positively known; but it probably occurred 
on Feb. 3, 1612. At all events, he must have 
died before Shakespeare, as he is not mentioned 
in his will. 

Before his marriage, John Shakespeare owned 
two freeholds in Stratford, one of them the Henley- 
Street house ; and in 1570 he held fourteen acres 
of meadow land under the Cloptons, and perhaps 
a residence on or near this land may explain his 
removal from the board of corporators in the 
town. In 1575 he purchased two houses in Strat- 
ford. I cannot help thinking that, in his ambi- 
tion to found a family and accumulate real estate, 
his troubles may have begun. Three years later 
he mortgaged his wife's farm of Asbyes to Ed- 
mund Lambert, who had married her sister Joan, 
for £40, — money which was perhaps made neces- 
sary by the purchase in 1575. Five years later 
it is seen that Edmund Lambert refused to receive 
payment to lift the mortgage at the time agreed 
upon, because Shakespeare owed him other money, 
which he could not then repay. The son, John 
Lambert, urged a settlement after his father's death ; 



22 AN OUTLINE OF THE 

and in 1597, all compromises refused, John Shake- 
speare filed a bill for the recovery of Asbyes. 

The story of the bailiff's decline in fortune is 
not very clear ; he is said to have been in prison 
for debt when he filed this bill. But there was 
another John Shakespeare in Stratford, a shoe- 
maker, who was always in trouble, and perhaps 
the affairs of the two have been somewhat mixed. 
Beside this, the registry of the courts has been 
lost from 1569 to 1585. It seems to me that very 
mistaken inferences have been drawn from the 
fact that in 1578 John Shakespeare was taxed 
on one half his property in Stratford, and after- 
ward not at all. In 1579 he is styled a yeoman ; 
he may very likely have been living outside the 
town limits on leased property, and no taxes 
within the borough may have been due. It is not 
common for municipalities to consider the poverty 
of tax-payers, and I think it was never known 
that taxes were remitted for that cause. John 
Shakespeare's position was a hard one. He had 
sold the Arden property at Snitterfield to redeem 
Asbyes, with no better result than a lawsuit ; but 
he was not ruined. He did not forfeit his Strat- 
ford property, for his son received it from him un- 
impaired ; and it was in the year before he filed 
his bill for its recovery that he applied for a grant 



LIFE OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEAEE. 23 

of "armour," — an application that would have 
been absurd in a man of falling fortunes, or a 
debtor in prison. 

In 1599 a second application for a " coat of 
armour" was made, and French says that it was 
granted. A coat meant something in those days, 
and would not have been granted on false pre- 
tences. If it had been so granted, the jealousy of 
his son's contemporaries would have been prompt 
to proclaim the theft, nor would Shakespeare's 
children have dared to mount it above his monu- 
ment in such a case. 

French says : " At all events, the plain, un- 
equivocal language of the best heralds is, that 
John Shakespeare was entitled to impale, and his 
descendants to quarter, the ancient arms of Arden 
of Wilmecote, a gentleman of worship and an 
esquire, with a motto that declares, — ^ 

^ IsTon sanz droict,' — 
' Not without right.' " ^ 

Whatever comfort coats of arms might give was 
reserved for the next generation, however. 

In 1592 John Shakespeare had been found ap- 
praising the goods of Henry Field, who was the 
father of the London printer, who brought out his 
son's " Venus and Adonis " the next year. 

1 See pp. 110-116. 



24 AN OUTLINE OF THE 

In 1596 his brother Henry died, and on the 
8th of September, 1601, John Shakespeare was 
buried. He appears to have retained his faculties 
to the last, as he was concerned in an action 
brought by Sir Edward Greville against the town 
in the same year. His widow survived him until 
the 9th of September, 1608. It would be pleas- 
ant to know something more of her, for it is not 
unlikely that the poet inherited from her some of 
his finest traits ; and he survived her but a very 
short time. Her influence, whatever it was, must 
have been felt through his whole life. 

We have followed the life of John Shakespeare 
to its close. We have seen that it was that- of a 
man prominent in the eyes of his towns-people. 
ITow that we understand his histor}^, we shall be 
the better prepared to understand the life of his 
oldest son. 

William Shakespeare was baptized on the 26th 
of April, 1564. Judging by the customs of the 
time, he was probably born on the 23d ; and that 
day is now celebrated as his birthday. Stratford 
was by no means a bad locality for the education 
of a boy such as Shakespeare must have been. It 
was on a great highway. All sorts of merchan- 
dise were brought to its fairs, and all sorts of peo- 
ple came with the merchandise. The fairs and 



LIFE OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 25 

theatrical performances at Warwick, Kenilworth, 
Coventry, and Evesham were not too far away 
for the wandering and adventurous feet of a bright 
boy. jN'othing could be more romantic and lovely 
than the scenery surrounding his native town ; and 
he probably travelled on foot from one farm to an- 
other, spending his holidays and Sundays on the 
farms of his kinsfolk and acquaintance, as well as 
in the diversions at the fairs. His plays are full 
of allusions which show an intimate acquaintance 
with the habits of flowers and insects, and are 
entirely free ^from the superstitious notions and 
errors of his time. Such superstitions he some- 
times quotes, so that we know he was not igno- 
rant of them ; but he was a lover of nature, and 
as careful an observer as Bewick. 

The country teemed also with historical tradi- 
tions. The great epochs of English history had 
left impressions at once poetical and stirring on 
all the neighboring soil, — had involved all the 
families he knew. Stories of " Bosworth field " his 
grandfather must have heard at first hand in his 
youth, and had doubtless often repeated to the 
growing boy. His plays bear evidence that he was 
also familiar with the " Mysteries " at Coventry. 

About the year 1570 Shakespeare probably en- 
tered the free school, and before that he must have 



26 AN OUTLINE OF THE 

been taught to read and write ; for this was the 
condition of entrance. In the year 1578 his 
father's circumstances began to suffer. When he 
borrowed money of Eoger Sadler, however, a friend 
was found to stand security, and witliin a year after 
he mortgaged Asbyes he was ready to lift the mort- 
gage. By the loss of the records of the courts for 
sixteen years, covering this period, we are deprived 
of what might have been valuable information. 
Mr. Halliwell-Phillips takes the traditional view 
that Shakespeare was removed from school on 
account of his father's poverty ; but so far as I 
have been able to ascertain there is not a particle 
of proof of this, nor of the story that goes with it 
that he was apprenticed to a butcher. A school 
like that at Stratford would certainly have been 
soon exhausted by such a boy ; and that his first 
employment would be found among the yeomen 
who were kindred to his father and mother is 
altogether likely. A great deal has been said 
about Shakespeare's deficient education; but he 
had more education than many eminent men in 
America. One of the most widely read men I 
ever knew, in many languages, had only one six 
weeks of schooling in his lifetime, and bought 
a copy of Ovid's " Metamorphoses " when he was 
sixteen, with sixty cents which he had first to 



LIFE OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 27 

earn by picking liickory-nuts. The stories of the 
learned blacksmith and of Eobert CoUyer are 
familiar to this generation. As the question is, 
however, of great interest, it seems better to intro- 
duce here certain statements in regard to it than 
to reserve them for the Appendix. 

Ben Jonson had said of his friend that he had 
" small Latine and lesse Greeke." 

In 1680 Aubrey, commenting on this, says: 
" Yet he must have understood Latin pretty well, 
for he had been in his younger years a school- 
master in the countrie ; " and quotes a Mr. Bees- 
ton as his authority, — a statement in accordance 
with my feeling that he would soon be done with 
the Stratford schools ; for if he ever taught at all, 
it must have been between his fourteenth and his 
twentieth year. 

In 1638 Jasper Mayne writes : — 

" Who, without Latine helps hadst been as rare 
As Beaumont, Fletcher, or as Shakspere were 1 " 

In the same year Eamsay wrote of Ben Jonson : 

" That Latine Hee reduced and could command 
That which your Shakspere scarce could understand." 

In 1691 Gerard Langbaine says in "England's 
Dramatic Poets : " — 



28 AN OUTLINE OF THE 

" I am apt to believe that his skill in the French 
and Italian tongues exceeded his knowledge in the 
Eoman languages. I esteeme his Playes beyond any 
that have been published in our language." 

In 1606, during Shakespeare's lifetime, a " Criti- 
cism on English Poets " appeared, in which Burbage 
and Kempe, two prominent actors, are represented 
as giving instruction to university students; and 
that Ben Jonson's criticisms were not always con- 
sidered apposite may be seen from the following 
passage : — 

" Few of the University," says Kempe, " write 
Plaies well ; they smell too much of that writer 
Ovide. Why here's our fellow Shakspere puts 
them all downe, I and Ben Jonson too. that 
Ben Jonson is a pestilent fellow ! He brought up 
Horace giving the Poets a piU, but our fellow 
Shakspere hath given him a purge," etc. 

It is probable that many of Shakespeare's friends 
resented the words of his critic. In 1658 Eichard 
Browne expressed a common feeling when he wrote : 

" Ben Jonson said to Shakspere, ' I will draw 
envie on thy name,' and then threw in his face 
* small Latine and lesse Glreeke ' ! " 

In 1662 Thomas Fuller says, in his " Worthies 
of Warwickshire : " — 

" William Shakspere was born at Stratford upon 



LIFE OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 29 

Avon ; in whom three eminent poets may seem 
in some sort to be compounded, — Martial, Ovid, 
and Plautus. Many were the wit combats be- 
tween him and Ben Jonson. Jonson was built 
far higher in learning, solid but slowe, like a 
Spanish galleon ; Shakspere, like the English 
man-of-war, lesser in bulke, could turn with all 
tides, tacke about, and take advantage of all 
minds by his quick wit and invention." 

Kowe, writing in 1709, says : — 

" Ben was proud and insolent, so that he could 
but look with an evil eye on any one that seemed 
to stand in competition with him." And further 
he adds : " One play of Shakspere's was founded 
on the ' Menaechmi ' of Plautus ; that is, his 
'Comedy of Errours,' and of that I know of no 
translation so old as his time." 

How great Shakespeare's technical knowledge 
of Latin might have been, we shall probably never 
know ; but his feeling for other languages no ap- 
preciative reader will be likely to mistake. He 
nevet uses a foreign word when an English one 
will answer. There is no affectation in his use 
of ancient or modern tongues, but he was too sin- 
cere an artist to turn the " Et tu, Brute " of the 
dying Csesar into English. He felt the poetic 
force of the historic phrase. 



30 AN OUTLINE OF THE 

In his Preface to Shakespeare's Plays, Theobald 
says, in 1733, that the current opinion of Shake- 
speare's learning has been determined by Jonson's 
squib. He leaves his readers to judge from pas- 
sages in which Shakespeare imitates the classics, 
whether this is to be trusted. " How happily he 
could imitate them," he says, " if that point be al- 
lowed, or how gloriously he could think like them, 
without owing anything to imitation! ... 'T is 
certain there is a surprising effusion of Latin wordes 
made English (in his works), far more than in any 
English author I have seen, but we must be cau- 
tious how we imagine this was of his own doing. 
Eor the English tongue in his age began extremely 
to suffer by an inundation of the Latin." 

The truth of this concluding remark is proved 
in the writings of both Bacon and Milton, the 
latter certainly not anxious to recommend himself 
to Elizabeth or James. 

It must certainly have been to the Stratford 
school that Shakespeare owed whatever knowl- 
edge of English, Greek, and Latin he possessed. 
Another way must be found to account for his 
knowledge of the continental languages, remarked 
by Langbaine, and the intimacy with the French 
testament, commented upon by Singer, in the Chis- 
wick edition of his Plays. Shakespeare had not 



LIFE OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 31 

the contempt for the English tongue which Bacon 
manifested, and often used the words of a transla- 
tion, as in the case of North's translation of Plu- 
tarch, where a very small knowledge of the Greek 
would have carried him to the original had he 
cared in the least ahout it. His enjoyment of the 
humours of school-keeping was frequently shown in 
later life ; and as far as we can Judge, as teacher or 
scholar, he was familiar with the " Accidence," the 
" Sententise Pueriles," Lily's " Grammar," and the 
few classical works which were in those days 
chained to the desks of a free school, as the Bible 
was chained to the church pulpit. 

According to all authorities, Shakespeare had 
hardly been free of the Stratford schoolhouse four 
years when he married Anne Hathaway. He was 
not nineteen till nearly six months after, and we 
do not know exactly when he was married. Proba- 
bly a pre-contract, the equivalent of a legal mar- 
riage, had been entered into in the summer of 1582, 
for his first child, Susannah, was baptized May 
26, 1583. In a private note Mr. Halliwell-Phillips 
informs me that there were no registers of pre- 
contracts, and a notice of one would only be found 
by an accident, as in litigation papers. No such 
paper exists in this case. At the same period, 
before a license could be taken out for the ecclesi- 



32 AN OUTLINE OF THE 

astical ceremony, — the pre-contract being con- 
sidered as a civil rite, — it was necessary to lodge 
at the Consistorial Court, a bond entered into by 
two sureties, certifying that there was no impedi- 
ment of any kind to the marriage. Such a bond 
has been found in this case, dated Nov. 28, 1582, 
and the sureties were two neighbours of Eichard 
Hathaway of Shottery. Perhaps it was from that 
fact, and also because this bond had attached to it 
the seal of some Eichard Hathaway, or rather a 
seal bearing the letters E. H., that Anne Hatha- 
way has usually been considered the daughter of 
Eichard Hathaway of Shottery. I think, however, 
that could hardly have been so. Eichard had died 
the previous year ; and his will, which does not 
mention any daughter Anne, was proven July 9, 
1582. Anne may have been a ward or niece, and 
the seal attached to the bond must have been bor- 
rowed only. In the bond itself she is called Anne 
Hathaway of Stratford, not Shottery. The will of 
Eichard Hathaway is of Eichard Hathaway of 
Shottery. 

Shakespeare's marriage has always been the sub- 
ject of many coarse and unsympathetic jests, which 
seem to be wholly unfounded. If he had been 
guilty of any scandal, we must have heard of it, 
for he was in a position very soon to rouse all the 



LIFE OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 33 

enmity and ill-will of his fellows. He was hand- 
some, successful, and, without college breeding, 
easily gave college-bred men " a purge," as a con- 
temporary tells us. In addition to this, he soon 
grew very rich, and had great influence with his 
own towns-people. In London he was well known 
to fellows who had grown up in Warwickshire. 
When he went back to his home, he went to 
the near relatives of those who, as actors or pub- 
lishers, were conversant with his London life. Had 
there been any scandal connected with his story, 
or had he lived unhappily with his wife, the 
spirit which pointed the "small Latine and lesse 
Greeke " would certainly have chronicled the fact. 

Before he was twenty-one, he was the father of 
three children ; yet not so well taught by experi- 
ence, that he did not get into some serious trouble 
with a certain Sir Thomas Lucy, of Cherlecot near 
Stratford. The loss of the records of the courts 
already alluded to, is as vexatious to^the scholar, as 
the loss of the medical diary kept by Shakespeare's 
son-in-law. Dr. Hall ; for if we had those records, 
we should know whether Sir Thomas actually 
prosecuted Shakespeare and for what. 

Whether he really was led into stealing deer 
two or three times, as Eowe relates, or whether he 
only took the part of the deer-stealers in a sting- 

3 



34 AN OUTLINE OF THE 

ing lampoon, we shall never know. At all events, 
he had made Warwickshire too hot to hold him, 
and in 1585 departed penniless and alone to Lon- 
don. He may not have been very sorry to go, for 
he must have felt the need of a broader life long 
before this; but his journey was undoubtedly a 
hard one. His father could have given him no 
assistance at that time. Having reached London, 
he would naturally have sought out Warwick men, 
and it was probably at the suggestion of one of 
these that he tried to make himself useful about 
the theatres. The story of " Shakespeare's boys " 
has always seemed to me a very pleasant one. 

If Shakespeare was introduced by any Warwick 
man to Burbage, who was the proprietor of the 
theatre, he found it in the parish of Shoreditch, far 
away in the fields ; and Burbage, who kept horses 
for his customers, may have suggested his first step. 
There were few private coaches, and none to be 
hired in those days. Men rode on horseback to 
the play, which was performed in the afternoon, 
and their horses were held by boys picked up at 
the moment. Shakespeare was so well suited to 
this trust, that he soon saw an opportunity to or- 
ganize a small band of helpers, who were so well 
liked, that before alighting, every gentleman, it was 
said, soon learned to call out for "Shakespeare's 



LIFE OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 35 

boys." The story carries its own evidence even if 
it had not been told by his god-son. AVlio does 
not recognize in it the thrifty, capable man who 
bought JSTew Place, the finest house in his native 
town, in twelve years after the day in which he 
fled from it penniless ? 

Between 1587, when he took some part in the 
proceedings between his father and uncle in re- 
gard to Asbyes, and 1592, five whole years, we 
know absolutely nothing of Shakespeare, yet these 
years must have been full of work. Books could 
be had for the first time, and men of culture 
showed him their fine points. Where he was, and 
what he did, during this period may never be 
known. My own conviction is that he spent it, 
after some apprenticeship at the theatres, chiefly 
on the Continent. This conviction is founded on 
the internal evidence of the Plays, and has nothing 
to support it beside, save vague traditions. At 
the time of the " Tercentenary," there was a three- 
days' festival at Frankfort ; and at the same time 
a novel was published founded on a tradition that 
Shakespeare had visited Frankfort, and that one 
of his comedies had been written there and per- 
formed before the Court. 

Some years ago a photograph from a picture of 
Hamlet was sent me, which is still hanging in my 



36 AN OUTLINE OF THE 

library. The original is in the Eoyal Gallery at 
Copenhagen. That was painted in the twelfth 
century, and the tradition in Copenhagen is, that 
Shakespeare had seen it. If the story be not true 
it ought to be, for we do not detect the outer man 
of Shakespeare's hero, in its "inky cloak" and 
" nighted garments," more certainly than we be- 
hold his inner likeness in the eye filled with spec- 
ulation, and the mouth, the wavering sweetness 
of which indicates a man incapable of steadfast 
resolution. Long ago Harriet Martineau drew 
attention to the fact, that Shakespeare showed a 
familiar acquaintance with the household habits 
of the Italians, which she supposed impossible, in 
his time, to one who had never been in Italy. 

In speaking to Lord Eonald Cower, Taine said 
that Shakespeare had made a special study of the 
works of the early Flemish engravers, and that he 
had made use of some of their works and their 
allegorical figures. The French critic asserts that 
the line in Hamlet, " Like Mobe, all tears," occurs 
beneath one of these engravings, in which the 
" mobled queen " appears as in a masque covered 
with tear-drops. A visit to Italy, on Shakespeare's 
part, would explain the actual or pretended paint- 
ing of his portrait by Zucchero, which seems to be 
disproved if the poet never left England. 



LIFE OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 37 

Eobert Greene, in his outburst of jealousy, in 
1592, calls Shakespeare an " upstart crowe," which 
he would hardly have done if the poet had been 
steadily rising in his profession in London for the 
last seven years. The insult to the poet was re- 
sented by " divers of worship," persons of wealth 
and standing, who could easily have made acquaint- 
ance with him on the Continent. 'None of the 
public mentions of Shakespeare occur before 1594, 
which would be incredible if he had actually been 
resident in London since 1582. If any discovery 
in relation to Shakespeare's life upon the Continent 
should ever be made, it must be made upon the 
Continent, and not in England. The attention of 
continental scholars to the points in discussion 
should therefore be urged. 

In a recent number of " La Domenica Littera- 
ria," a prominent Eoman journal. Signer A. E. 
Levi draws attention to a minute knowledge of 
Italian literature on Shakespeare's part. There is 
a well-known passage in Othello, — 

" There 's magic in the web of it, 
A sibyl . . . 
In her prophetic fury sewed the work." 

In the 46th canto and 80th stanza of the 
" Orlando Furioso " is the following : — 



38 AN OUTLINE OF THE 

" Una donzella della terra d 'Ilia 
Ch' avea il furore prof etico conjunto 
Con studio di gran tempo e di vigilia 
Lo fece di sua man di tutto punto," — 

whicli we may translate, if we are average Italian 
scholars, as follows: "A damsel of the land of 
Ilion, who united prophetic fire, to long and careful 
study, set every stitch with her own hand." The 
root of the word furorej which is usually trans- 
lated " heat," was just the sort of word to strike 
the poet's fancy, and when his genius had changed 
the word fire to fury, it made him owner of the 
phrase. At that time there was no translation of 
the " Orlando," except one published by Sir John 
Harrington twenty years before Shakespeare was 
born. In that translation this whole stanza was 
omitted.^ 

Signer Levi finds the familiar exclamation of 
lago, — " Who steals my purse steals trash," — and 
so on, paralleled in a stanza of Berni's " Orlando 
Innamorato," which has never yet been translated. 

Let us remember, in this connection, that in 
1691 Gerard Langbaine wrote that Shakespeare's 
knowledge of the French and Italian tongues ex- 
ceeded his knowledge of the Eoman, — that is, 
the Latin. Yet a moderate school-knowledge of 

1 See Boston " Daily Advertiser," July, 1885. 



LIFE OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 39 

the Latin was a more common accomplishment in 
his day. How was it possible for him to be 
familiar with French and Italian if he never left 
England ? 

It has never been exactly understood how Dr. 
John Hall, who married Susannah Shakespeare, 
came to Stratford ; but if Shakespeare were, as I 
think, a travelled man, he might easily have fallen 
in with Hall upon the Continent, and have induced 
him to settle there. 

A very interesting book, by Cohn, called " Shak- 
speare in Germany in the 16th and 17th Centuries," 
was published in London in 1865. It relates rather 
to the progress of Shakespeare's drama in Germany 
than to his own possible appearance there ; but it 
contains several interesting suggestions. 

It was in 1585 that the Earl of Leicester went 
to the IsTetherlands, at the head of the troops Eliz- 
abeth sent to the aid of the United Provinces. 
Sir Philip Sidney, writing from Utrecht, speaks 
of " Will, the Lord of Leicester's jesting player." 
It has been imagined that this player was Shake- 
speare.^ Bruce thinks it was rather Will Kempe ; 
and unless an alibi can be proved, it might have 
been Eichard Tarlton, the famous comedian, who 

1 See John Bruce, in papers of the Shakspere Society, vol i. 
p. 94. 



40 AN OUTLINE OF THE 

was almost certainly the "pleasant Willy" of 
Spenser. Tarlton died in 1588, and complimen- 
tary verses indicate that he was known by that 
pseudonym. 

Dr. Bell, in the " Morgenblatt " (4to, Stuttgardt, 
1853, No. 50), assumes that Shakespeare went to 
Germany by way of Holland, where he might have 
made acquaintance with his " Mobe, all tears." 

It is interesting to know that Leicester, while 
in the Low Countries in 1591, commended an 
English company of players to the king of Den- 
mark. These players went abroad to improve 
themselves by travel, and played to provide for 
their expenses. 

An imperial notary, named Ayer, at the Court 
of N'uremberg, wrote plays from 1593 to 1605, and 
it seems clear that Ayer and Shakespeare must 
either have had a personal acquaintance, or have 
derived materials for their work from some com- 
mon and, so far, unrecognized source. 

As early as 1611 Shakespeare's "Merchant of 
Venice" was acted at Halle. Can we suppose 
him ignorant of this fact? In 1626 four of his 
Plays were performed at Dresden by English 
comedians. But it will be said, how did it hap- 
pen that, if Shakespeare went to the Continent, 
there is no allusion to such a fact in the papers 



LIFE OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEAEE. 41 

wliicli relate to him ? How did it happen that, 
when Abraham Sturley wrote to Eichard Queeney 
in London, urging him to talk with Shakespeare 
about Shottery yard-lots and Stratford tithes, 
Queeney was never forced to reply, "Our Will 
is away in foreign partes " ? We know that 
Shakespeare was obliged often to travel into the 
provinces with his company, although the absence 
of his name from the provincial records lends 
strength to the idea that he may have gone abroad. 
"No record remains of these provincial journeys. If 
any exist of his presence abroad, it must be found 
upon the Continent. Of the proof in the Plays 
themselves, this is not the place to speak. I feel it. 
Ko insular breeding shows itself upon his pages. 

If any scholar could be found competent and 
willing to devote himself to a search for traces of 
Shakespeare in France, Germany, the Low Coun- 
tries, and Italy, as Mr. Halliwell-Phillips has 
devoted himself in England, it is possible the 
problem might be solved. 

At all events, the five years from 1587 to 1592 
were fruitful of growth. On the 3d of March, 
1592, Shakespeare's first play, the first part of 
" Henry the Sixth," was brought out by Henslowe. 
The scene of this play, it will be observed, is laid 
partly in France. Its great success must have 



42 AN OUTLINE OF THE 

been as much a surprise to Stratford and London 
as it would have been if his friends in those two 
towns had been as imorant as we are of his where- 
abouts meanwhile ; and one of the first proofs of 
this was found in a posthumous tract by Robert 
Greene, a distinguished dramatist of that time, 
called " The Groatsworth of Wit." By this time 
all Shakespeare's plays of the reign of Henry 
VI. were probably on the stage, and Greene traves- 
ties in his pamphlet a vigorous line in the third 
Part thus : — 

" There is an upstart crowe, beautified with our 
feathers, that with his ' Tiger s heart wrapt in a 
players hide ' supposes he is as well able to bum- 
bast out a blanke verse as the rest of you, and 
being an absolute Johannes-factotum is in his own 
conceit the only Shake-scene in a countrie." 

Greene died on the 3d of September, 1592, and 
his book was published by Henry Chettle soon 
after. This passage created so much disturbance 
that Chettle was obliged to apologize for printing 
it. It is a valuable passage, for it shows us that 
before he became an author Shakespeare had made 
himself useful in all sorts of ways as a theatrical 
factotum. We see also that he had already made 
powerful friends ; for in his apology, after speaking 
of Shakespeare's courtesy and excellence as an 



LIFE OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEAEE. 43 

actor, Chettle goes on to say, " Divers of worship 
have reported his uprightness of dealing " and his 
" felicitous grace in writing." 

There was in London in those days a certain 
Eichard Field. He was from Stratford, and made 
himself remarkable in 1589 by printing a superb 
edition of Ovid's " Metamorphoses." In 1593 he 
brought out the " Venus and Adonis " of his young 
townsman, which was for a long time as popular 
as if its daintiest graces had been readily per- 
ceived ; but whatever may be thought of that, 
" Lucrece," published in the May of 1594, imme- 
diately secured to Shakespeare the position of one 
of England's greater poets. The prefaces and dedi- 
cations to these poems are the only papers remain- 
ing to us of Shakespeare's writing "which may 
be supposed to have individual character," says 
Mr. Halliwell-Phillips. For myself I think his 
whole treatment of the story of "Venus and 
Adonis " most individual and worthy of profound 
study. Sensuous as its pictures are, they are 
painted by a chaste spirit. That he had the leisure 
to write these two long and remarkable poems 
was probably due to the prevalence of the plague, 
which put a stop to all theatrical performances for 
more than a year. 

As one of the Lord Chamberlain's servants, 



44 AN OUTLINE OF THE 

Shakespeare acted before Queen Elizabeth at 
Greenwich, and there he was associated with 
Kempe and Burbage. 

At Christmas, in 1594, the "Comedy of Errours " 
was played at Gray's Inn, and the elegant hall 
finished in 1560 is the only existing structure 
whose " timbered roofe " we know to have echoed 
to Shakespeare's voice. In 1596 Shakespeare 
was living in Southwark. By this time he had 
probably outlived his trouble with Sir Thomas 
Lucy, and went from Stratford to London once or 
twice a year. His " Komeo and Juliet " now took 
the town by storm, and his earnings were so 
large, and his father's position so much improved, 
that the latter was ready to apply again for a 
"coat of armour," and Shakespeare to purchase 
Kew Place in the following year. But before 
this could happen he must have gone back to 
Stratford to attend the funeral of that only son 
for whom he had pleased himself by accumulating 
honours. A little later he lost his uncle Henry at 
Snitterfield. Certainly if Shakespeare's early life 
had been marked with disgraceful scandals or ex- 
cesses he would at this time have removed his 
wife and family from Stratford, and founded a 
new home in the neighbourhood of London. He 
was able to do as he chose, and he chose to go 



LIFE OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEAEE. 45 

back to those who had always known him, who 
showed confidence in his character and means, and 
where he might continue in frequent intercourse 
with his own kindred. 

In 1598 the quantity of corn which he raised 
shows him as one of the most successful agricul- 
turalists of the town. 

It made little difference to Shakespeare practi- 
cally whether his family were in London or Strat- 
ford, so long as he led the life of a player. That 
was a wandering life spent in travelling from 
province to province. He had some residence in 
London, for he was assessed in Bishop's Gate in 
1598, and it was in this year that he did Ben 
Jonson the service of securing the acceptance of 
"Every Man in His Humour." 

We can guess that the respect which was shown 
him in Stratford he had also earned at the theatre. 
He was not only a good actor and a great poet, but 
he was a generous and kindly man, of good critical 
judgment, or he could not have saved this play, 
which the managers wished to refuse. At this time 
he laid out a fruit orchard at New Place, and a few 
years after he planted the famous mulberry-tree, 
so long associated with his name. Mulberries had 
been brought to England by a Frenchman named 
Yertin, and their distribution was sanctioned by 



46 AN OUTLINE OF THE 

King James. At this time also, Jan. 15, 1597-98, 
when he was negotiating the purchase of thirty- 
acres of land in Shottery, Abraham Sturley wrote 
to Thomas Queeney, in London, suggesting that as 
Shakespeare had money to spare it might be well 
to induce him to bid for the town tithes. 

In a private note Mr. Halliwell-Phillips tells 
me that "just before the Eeformation the clergy 
got frightened in regard to the security of their 
properties in the future, and in many cases accepted 
bonuses for long leases. In this way the tithes at 
Stratford had been ' leased,' " and it was now pro- 
posed that Shakespeare should buy the remaining 
term of one half these tithes. 

In this letter Sturley alludes to Sir Thomas 
Lucy; and in the opening scene of the play of 
" The Merrie Wives of Windsor " the author so 
unnecessarily revives Lucy's memory that it w^ould 
seem as if he had in some way brought himself 
afresh to the poet's mind, — a matter, as will be 
seen elsewhere, closely connected with the history 
of the " coat of armour." ^ Queen Elizabeth had 
been so fascinated with the humour of Falstaff 
when he called himself Sir John Oldcastle, that 
after the name w^as changed by her order, to save 
the feelings of the Oldcastle family, she ordered 

1 See pp. 110-116. 



LIFE OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 47 

Shakespeare to show her Falstaff in love, and the 
" Merrie Wives of Windsor '* was produced, proba- 
bly in 1598. 

In Sturley's letter we see Shakespeare regarded 
as a man of wealth. The writer wants Shake- 
speare to purchase the tithes because it would 
benefit the Corporation. He desires Queeney to 
tell Shakespeare that it will benefit him and make 
him useful " frendes." He was evidently in the 
secret of Shakespeare's ambition. A little later 
Queeney himself writes to " his loving good friend 
and countryman," Mr. William Shakespeare, ask- 
ing for a loan of £30, and he is not refused. 

Shakespeare's increase in wealth is often pro- 
nounced incredible ; but at least two other actors 
of his time accumulated large fortunes. So little, 
however, could Shakespeare's Stratford friends 
understand the rapid rise of his fortunes, that 
they asserted that it was the bounty of the Earl 
of Southampton that enabled him to purchase 
New Place. 

This suggestion is interesting because it shows 
us how intimate his relations with Southampton 
were supposed to be. A man is judged by his 
friends, and the associates who chose Shakespeare 
or were chosen by him bear witness to a refined 
taste. Ben Jonson and Marlowe were men of so 



48 AN OUTLINE OF THE 

much literary ability that the alliance was natural. 
It is sometimes said that we are not to judge 
Shakespeare by his works. That was not the opin- 
ion of Jonson, who wrote of the Plays : — 

"Looke how the father's face 
Lives in his issue." 

It seems to me, that in the liberal political views 
obvious throughout the Plays, we have the secret of 
Shakespeare's attraction for many persons of su- 
perior rank. In his lifetime he was doubtless the 
mouthpiece of the liberal party ; and that nothing 
worse happened to him than some order to omit 
the deposition scene in " King Eichard III.," was 
due to his prudence and his personal charms. The 
picture which Jonson draws of him is captivating. 
Pembroke, Eutland, and Montgomery, as well as 
Southampton, were his friends, and when the " Cor- 
poration " want favours at Court they rely upon the 
poet's influence. 

The Earl of Pembroke was said to have been 
the "most esteemed and beloved of any man of 
that age." There are many proofs that Shake- 
speare continued on excellent terms with all those 
with whom he was most associated. Of his especial 
Stratford friend, Julius Shawe, the records of the 
Stratford Corporation speak in the highest terms. 



LIFE OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 49 

This social influence was added to his power as 
a dramatist, and so, by 1598, the booksellers began 
to be anxious to get his Plays. Certain " sugared 
sonnets," written apparently for his dearest friends 
but carefully hidden from the public, began to be 
talked about. These Sonnets, certainly the finest 
in the English language, contain many passages 
well known to all modern readers. It seems to 
me that they are ideal, yet that here and there 
they throw light, by impulsive words, upon the 
history and character of the author. It has been 
said that Shakespeare never knew the value of 
his own verse. Why then did he write in the 
65th Sonnet, — 

" Not marble, nor the gilded monuments of princes, 
Shall outlive this powerful rhyme" 1 

That Shakespeare himself loved and valued the 
drama, I fully believe ; but he was a young man 
when he died, and he had retired voluntarily from 
the stage long before. When therefore he wrote 
in the 111th Sonnet, — 

"And almost thence my nature is subdued 
To what it works in, like the dyer's hand," — 

I believe he was expressing his annoyed conscious- 
ness of the estimate others put upon his vocation. 
The same feeling was expressed by some lines 

4 



50 AN OUTLINE OF THE 

written to him by John Davies in 1610, in the 
"Scourge of Follie:" — 

" Some say, good Will, which I in sport do sing, 
Hadst thou not played some kingly parts in sport. 
Thou hadst been a companion for a king 
And been a king among the meaner sort. " 

The first publisher who attempted to publish the 
Sonnets, however, only succeeded in getting hold 
of two ; but the poet's reputation led to the issue of 
forged pieces, of false titlepages, and advertisements 
that the publisher was " about to issue a new play 
which had never been on the stage." Shakespeare 
seems to have had too much to do to pursue these 
frauds, or else was supremely indifferent to them. 
His apathy led a certain Thomas Pavior, residing 
at the suggestive sign of the "Cat and Parrots," 
to bring out a play under his name with which he 
had certainly nothing to do; that of "Sir John 
Oldcastle." 

It was in this year, also, that the first edition 
of " The Passionate Pilgrim " appeared. This was 
a fraudulent collection of small poems, published 
with the name of Shakespeare upon the titlepage. 
It was printed by one 

" W. Taggard, 

at London, St. Paul's Churchyard, 

in 1599." 



LIFE OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 51 

Of twenty poems, only five were actually written 
by Sliakespeare. Two were Heywood's, who com- 
plained bitterly of the abuse, while he acknowl- 
edged that Shakespeare was in no way responsible 
for it. One belonged to Barnfield, another to Mar- 
lowe, and others still were the property of unknown 
authors. Shakespeare's name w^as finally removed 
from the titlepage, probably in consequence of his 
own remonstrance. That it ever appeared there, 
is a striking proof of its commercial value. This 
publication has a definite interest for the student 
of Shakespeare; for here appeared for the first 
time some of the " sugared sonnets " of which 
Meres had written. They are the 138th and 
144th of the edition published in 1609 ; and 
their appearance in this piratical fashion seems to 
show that they were stolen from private albums, 
and lends colour to the idea that all the Sonnets 
were separately written and were never intended 
as a series. 

In this year, 1599, the Globe Theatre, which 
the genius of Shakespeare was to make the most 
famous in the world, was built ; and Southampton 
went " merrilie to the plays every day." In March 
of this year the ill-fated Earl of Essex started for 
Ireland. Southampton went with him as his Gen- 
eral of Horse. Both he and the Earl of Eutland 



52 AN OUTLINE OF THE 

had married into tlie family of Essex, and Shake- 
speare's affections must have been largely interested 
in their fortunes. While it was still supposed that 
Essex would return victorious from Ireland, the 
poet inserted a graceful compliment to him in the 
play of "King Henry V." Many fraudulent at- 
tempts were made to print this play. In the same 
year, according to French's Genealogy, John Shake- 
speare received his grant of " coat armour." His 
grandchildren certainly used it, and it was placed 
above the poet's monument, — proceedings which, 
taken in connection with the motto, would have 
been likely to start many satirical pens, if not 
founded upon a well-established claim.^ 

About the same time Shakespeare brought 
an action against one John Clayton for £7, and 
recovered it ; and at this time he tried very un- 
successfully to mix philosophy with poetry in a 
contribution to a volume called " Love's Martyr," 
by Eobert Chester. 

In February of 1601 the Earl of Essex was 
beheaded, and while Shakespeare's heart was still 
sore with the imprisonment of friends and the 
political situation, his father died, and was buried 
September 8. The absence of court records leaves 
us unable to account for the fact that John Shake- 
1 See pp. 110-116. 



LIFE OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEAEE. 53 

speare made no will. If his embarrassments were as 
great, in 1580, as Mr. Halliwell-Phillips supposes, 
the poet might have purchased his estates and dis- 
cliarged his obligations ; but it seems clear that he 
did not do so. He had but two brothers at home, 
Eichard and Gilbert, and Gilbert was certainly 
in his own employ. Edmund was with him in 
London; and Joan Harte, his only sister, partly 
perhaps because her own circumstances were nar- 
row, and partly because her mother needed her 
care, was apparently living in Henley Street with 
her children. 

In the following January the appearance of the 
exquisite drama of " Twelfth Night " at the theatre 
and at Court was followed by the purchase of one 
hundred and seven acres of land in Stratford from 
William Combe and his brother ; and as the poet 
was in London, conveyance was made to his 
brother Gilbert, who seems to have acted from this 
time as his agent. 

In the following September Walter Getly sold 
him a cottage and garden in Chapel Lane. 

" Hamlet " was the next drama which challenged 
public interest, and as usual, several fraudulent at- 
tempts were made to print it. 

On the 2d of February, 1603, Shakespeare was 
summoned to Whitehall to play before the Queeru 



54 AN OUTLINE OF THE 

On the 24tli of Marcli she was dead. Many were 
the voices lifted in mourning. Scarce a poet of 
any degree kept silence ; but Shakespeare did not 
speak. Three several times was he reproached 
publicly with his silence, — by the author of 
" Epigrams/' by the author of the " Mournful 
Dittie/' and by Henry Chettle. In no way did 
he respond. The woman who put Essex to death 
and imprisoned Southampton need expect no 
more favour from him than the friend who had 
betrayed him. 

In 1603 King James granted a license to nine 
players, of whom Shakespeare was one. It is 
noticeable that he speaks of them as already 
"king's servants," from which it has been sup- 
posed that they may have played before him at 
Perth in 1601. It is said the company were in- 
troduced in Scotland — at Aberdeen — by a letter 
from the King. The " king's servants " took rank 
with the grooms of the chamber, and had a " dress " 
allowance. 

In the same year Shakespeare purchased of one 
Underbill a " messuage, with barnes, gardens, and 
orchards." 

Fraudulent publications went on; and accord- 
ing to Heywood, in one instance at least, Shake- 
speare was sufidciently annoyed to interfere. 



LIFE OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 55 

In the same year he prosecuted Philip Eogers 
for a debt that he owed him, and received a 
bequest of thirty shillings in gold from Augustine 
Phillips. 

In July, 1605, the poet made what Halliwell- 
PhilHps calls the most judicious purchase of his 
life. He gave £440 for the unexpired term of a 
half-interest in a lease, extending to 1636, of the 
tithes of Stratford, Old Stratford, Bishopton, and 
Welcombe, subject to certain annual payments. 
Seven years before, this purchase had been pressed 
upon him, as a reliable citizen certain to serve 
the interests of the town. Only a man of great 
prudence and tact could make such a purchase 
profitable to himself, as the tithes were frequently 
paid in produce, in sheaves of wheat, and pigs 
from the sty, which must be again disposed o£ 

In October of the same year Shakespeare's 
company performed before the mayor at Oxford; 
and he stayed, in all probability, with his friends 
the Davenants at the Crown Inn. In the follow- 
ing spring Mrs. Davenant brought her husband 
a son named William, who was baptized on the 
3d of March, 1606, at St. Martin's. The boy 
was Shakespeare's godson, and very fond of him ; 
but the fact gave occasion to the only scandal 
which has survived concerning the poet, and for- 



56 AN OUTLINE OF THE 

tunately it has met with complete refutation, as 
may be seen in the contemporary documents col- 
lected and published by Halliwell-Phillips. Sir 
William Davenant's fatlier was a morose but ex- 
cellent man, who had a beautiful, lively, and 
witty wife. For the pleasure of both, Shake- 
speare stayed with them as he went back and 
forth from Stratford to London. It was a sus- 
picious circumstance that the story of the scandal 
had been printed, with other names attached 
to it, in a volume of "tavern-jests," in 1630. 
It was first put in shape by that old gossip Aubrey, 
who acknowledges that it was not known in Shake- 
speare's lifetime, as he was held in great esteem at 
Oxford ! It is repeated after Aubrey by Gildon in 
1699; by Hearne, 1709; "The Poetical Eegister," 
1719 ; in the conversations of Pope ; and the manu- 
script of Oldys. The scandal that " was not known 
in Shakspere's lifetime" is now effectually put 
to rest, — first, by John Davenant's will, in which 
he not only mentions his " son " William, but 
makes generous provision for him ; and speaks of 
his wife as a mother who would have guided his 
children safely, had she not died a fortnight before 
him. The second refutation is to be found in 
certain poems, which could have been nothing 
but wanton insult to the memory of the dead, had 



LIFE OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEAEE. 57 

there ever been any doubt of Mrs. Davenant's 
virtue. Here are the concluding lines of one of 
them : — 

" What merits he ? Why, a contented life, 
A happy issue of a virtuous wife, 
The choice of friends, a quiet, honoured grave, — 
All these he had ; what more could Davenant have 1 " 

Langbaine and Wood, of Oxford, in giving the 
history of William Davenant, both distinctly assert 
that he was the "mercurial son of a saturnine 
father, Mr. John Davenant." 

In 1636 Sir William Davenant wrote of Shake- 
speare : — 

" Beware, delighted Poets, when you sing 
To welcome nature in the early Spring, 
Your numerous feet not tread 
The banks of Avon, — for each floure 
Hangs there the pensive head." 

It does not appear that Shakespeare was a great 
actor, but certainly he shows himself in " Hamlet " 
the very finest of dramatic critics. Sir William 
Davenant asserted that he had seen Taylor act 
" Hamlet," who, having been taught by Shakespeare, 
taught Betterton how to act it. If Shakespeare 
taught any one, — and it is very probable that he 
did, — it must have been Burbage, as Taylor did 
not take the part till after Shakespeare's death. 



58 AN OUTLINE OF THE 

In 1606 "King Lear" was played before King 
James. Late in ISToveraber of 1607 the book- 
sellers and the company obtained the consent of 
the Master of the Eevels to the publication of the 
tragedy, two editions of which appeared in 1608. 
The author's name is given in large type at the 
very commencement of each titlepage, which 
Halliwell-Phillips considers a remarkable testi- 
mony to Shakespeare's popularity. 

In June, 1607, Susannah, Shakespeare's oldest 
daughter, was married to Dr. Hall, — a marriage 
which must have been in every way agreeable to 
the poet, as Dr. Hall was a man of education and 
more than common ability. On the 31st of De- 
cember in that year, Edmund Shakespeare was 
buried at Southwark. He was the youngest child 
of John Shakespeare ; and though he was only a 
player, and one of no great reputation, the bell was 
tolled in his honour. 

On the 21st of February, 1608, Elizabeth Hall 
was born. She was the only child of her parents, 
and on her all the ambitious hopes of Shakespeare 
were thenceforward to rest. 

Plays written by Shakespeare, or adapted by 
him to the uses of the theatre, continued to follow 
one anotlier pretty rapidly. As soon as they were 
performed, some publisher would get the consent 



LIFE OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEAKE. 59 

of the Master of the Eevels to their publication. 
The company, however, who wished to keep the 
profits to themselves, would refuse ; and any con- 
scientious printer being obliged to yield to their 
wishes, whatever plays were printed came to the 
light in some dishonourable way. In 1608 
Thomas Pavior impudently published " The York- 
shire Tragedy " as having been written by William 
Shakespeare, while Shakespeare and his company 
were travelling along the southern coast. 

In September of the same year Mary Arden, 
the mother of Shakespeare, died; and her death 
probably brought Shakespeare to Stratford, and 
one of his friends took advantage of his presence. 
On the 16th of October he was principal godfather 
to William Walker, the son of one of the Stratford 
aldermen. Other business engaged him ; he had 
begun an action, afterwards decided in his favour, 
against one John Addenbroke, but Addenbroke 
disappearing, he was obliged to proceed against 
a man named Horneby, who had stood bail for 
him. Thomas Greene, his solicitor, who was then 
living at New Place, managed these affairs. 

In 1609 appeared " Shake-speare's Sonnets, never 
before Imprinted." They were entered at Station- 
ers' Hall, May 20. The publisher, one Thorpe, 
obtained these evidently from one of Shakespeare's 



60 AN OUTLINE OF THE 

friends, — a certain W. H., to whom he dedicates 
the book. He can hardly express gratitude enough 
to this person, and he calls attention to Shake- 
speare's authorship by large capitals. 

The same year Shakespeare's company took 
possession of Blackfriars'. This consisted of 
Heminges, Condell, Burbage, and himself. 

In 1610 Shakespeare bought twenty acres of 
land of the Combes. Gilbert Shakespeare must 
have been a good manager, for Shakespeare accu- 
mulates land as rapidly as reputation. 

In this year and 1611 plays continued to pour 
from the press. 

" The Tempest " was performed before King 
James and the Court, 'Noy. 1, 1611. 

In 1612 Shakespeare was involved in a suit 
concerning his local tithes, some of the lessees fail- 
ing in duty, and leaving Shakespeare and others 
to pay an unfair proportion. The income of his 
share of the tithes at this time was £60. 

In the spring of 1613 "The Winter's Tale " was 
performed before Prince Charles, the Lady Eliza- 
beth, and the Prince Elector Palatine. 

On the 11th of September Shakespeare's name 
is found at Stratford, on a folio page of donors 
"towards the charge of prosecuting the better 
repayre of the highewaies." 



LIFE OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 61 

It was now that some of Heywood's verses were 
published with Shakespeare's name attached to 
them, by a printer named Jaggard. " The author 
I know much offended with M. Jaggard, that, un- 
known to him, presumed to make so bold with his 
name," writes Heywood. 

On the 4th of February, 1613, Shakespeare's 
brother Kichard died, at the age of thirty-nine. 
ISTothing is known of his life or story except that, 
like Gilbert, he had probably never married. 

A great deal has been written of those clos- 
ing- years when Shakespeare lived at Stratford, 
released from every care save that of providing the 
theatre with two plays a year, and enjoying an 
ample income, with freq^uent visits from his Lon- 
don friends ; but the interval of complete rest 
must have been a very brief one. 

From 1597, when he bought New Place, where 
he laid out orchards and planted a mulberry, 
Shakespeare probably resided at Stratford a part 
of every year, and after the marriage of his daugh- 
ter it is hardly likely that he personally appeared 
upon the stage. In the " Conveyance," at the time 
he bought one hundred and seven acres of the 
Combes in 1602, he is called "William Shakespeare 
of Stratford upon Avon." In 1608 he is spoken of 
as " William Shakespeare, late an actor," and may 



62 AN OUTLINE OF THE 

actually have left the stage some time before. 
When he was taxed in South wark in 1596, he 
was probably living with his brother Edmund, 
who died there in 1607, and was buried at St. 
Saviour's, with a tolling of the "forenone bell." 
After this date Shakespeare would have been still 
more likely to pass every possible moment at 
Stratford. He certainly looked closely after his 
interests there after Gilbert's death in February, 
1612. We do not know that he had ever had a 
day's illness, and he might reasonably have looked 
forward a quarter of a century. But the end was 
already drawing near. In March he bought his 
Blackfriars' estate in London at so extravagant a 
price as to show that he was very anxious to pos- 
sess it ; but whether as a possible winter residence 
for himself, or for some purpose connected with 
the theatre, does not clearly appear. I am in- 
clined to think that he bought it in the interest 
of his theatrical friends, for a mortgage of £60 was 
left upon it, and it was delivered to trustees, who 
immediately leased it to one John Eobinson. If 
it were bought to protect the interest of his old 
friends at Blackfriars', and in the hope that they 
would soon take possession of it, this hope was 
certainly disappointed. 
It would seem as if he must have relinquished 



LIFE OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 63 

his interest in the Globe before this time, as at the 
period of its destruction by fire, on the 29th of 
June, 1613, his name is nowhere mentioned in 
connection with it. " King Henry VIII." was on 
the stage at the moment, the part of the king being 
taken by Lowin, a very accomplished actor. This 
man was said to have been taught by Shakespeare. 
Lowin taught Davenant, and Davenant Betterton, 
so the traditions of Shakespeare's manner may 
have descended to our time. 

Just before the theatre was burned, there was 
started at Stratford some miserable scandal con- 
cerning Susannah Hall and one Ealph Smith, 
which Dr. Hall thought proper to notice. The 
story was traced, and the man who set it afloat 
was summoned to the Ecclesiastical Court. Eob- 
ert Whatcott, Shakespeare's friend, appeared for 
Susannah. E"either defendant nor proxy showed 
himself; and Lane, the slanderer, was formally 
excommunicated July 27, 1613. The story would 
be hardly worth repeating, except that it shows 
us how certainly any real peccadilloes of the poet 
or his family must have been preserved for us. 

In 1614 the Corporation thought fit to send to 
"New Place a quart of sack and another of claret, 
for the entertainment of a preacher sojourning 
there. This was a custom of the times. 



64 AN OUTLINE OF THE 

In July John Combe died, and left to Shake- 
speare the handsome legacy of £5. 

In the autumn of this year Shakespeare became 
involved in an unpopular movement, which did 
not do much credit to his insight. William 
Combe undertook to secure the enclosure of the 
common-fields, a measure which, if it had been 
successful, would have reduced the amount of 
taxes received by the Corporation, and also have 
diminished the number of labourers employed in 
the town. In various ways Combe influenced 
many persons, both rich and poor, to assist his 
purpose, and Shakespeare had been too long his 
friend to array himself in opposition. On the 23d 
of November the Corporation, evidently thinking 
that Shakespeare did not quite know what was 
doing, addressed a letter to him. Thomas Greene, 
Shakespeare's cousin and solicitor, and also the 
Stratford town clerk, was in London, where Shake- 
speare arrived on the 16th of November. The 
following extracts from Greene's diary are very 
curious, and contain the only account that exists 
of a personal interview with the poet : — 

" 1. Jovis. 17 Nov. my cozen Shakspeare 
comyng yesterday to towne, I went to see him, 
how he did. He told me that they assured him 
they ment to inclose noe further than to Gospell 



LIFE OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 65 

Buslie, and so upp straight (leaving out part of 
the Dyngles to the Field) to the gate in Clopton 
hedge, and take in Salisbury's peece ; and that 
they mean in Aprill to survey the land, and then 
to gyve satisfaction and not before ; and he and 
Mr. Hall say they think ther will be nothyng 
done at all. 

" 2. 23 Dec. A. hall. Letters wrytten, one to 
Mr. Manyring, another to Mr. Shakspear, with 
almost all the company's handes to eyther. I 
alsoe wrytte of myself to my cosen Shakspear the 
coppye of all our actes, and then also a not of the 
inconveniences would happen by the inclosure. 

"3. 10 Januarii, 1614. Mr. Mannaryng and his 
agreement for me, with my cosen Shakspeare. 

"4. 9 Jan. 1614. Mr. Eeplyngham 28 Octobris 
article with Mr. Shakspere, and then I was putt 
in by Thursday. 

" 5. Sept. (1615 ?) Mr. Shakspere told Mr. J. 
Greene that I was not abble to beare the enclosing 
of Welcombe." 

The name of Mr. Eeplyngham may create some 
confusion. This gentleman was intending to en- 
close some land, and his " article " with Mr. Shake- 
speare pledged him to pay to William Shakespeare 
and Thomas Greene whatever they might lose by 
said enclosing. 



Q6 AN OUTLINE OF THE 

Greene had returned to Stratford, Mr. Halliwell- 
Phillips tells ns, before the letter of the Corpora- 
tion was written. The effort at enclosure was 
defeated, as it deserved to be. 

The entry of September 5 contains the only 
recorded words of our great poet, and as such will 
always have a mournful interest for us. 

The pleasant days went on for a few weeks. 
Jonson and Drayton came to see Shakespeare, 
and very likely went to the old inn where he had 
been accustomed to watch the antics of a " fool," 
that he might immortalize him in the company of 
Sly, Kaps, Turf, and Pimpernell. The hilarity of 
the party had attracted the attention of the vil- 
lagers, for when, in March, 1616, the poet was 
stricken with fever, the rumour ran that it came 
of too much drinking with his friends. 

Considering the suddenness of this illness, it is 
a little singular that the draft of Shakespeare's 
last will had been made on the 16th of January 
preceding. His daughter Judith had been mar- 
ried to Thomas Queeny without a license on the 
10th of February, and the pair were afterwards 
fined by the Ecclesiastical Court for the liberty 
taken. It does not appear that Shakespeare anti- 
cipated the marriage at the time the draft of his 
will was made. On the 25th of March his lawyer. 



LIFE OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 67 

Francis Collins, was summoned, and the will has- 
tily interlined to suit the altered circumstances, 
and signed by Shakespeare. His mind was still 
clear, for he suggested the interlineations himself, 
and the two words, "by mee," are written in a 
strong hand. 

Judith received an ample marriage portion, but, 
according to the customs of the time, it was upon 
the poet's oldest child that the responsibility of 
sustaining the family honours devolved, and to her 
he devised the real estate he had been so long 
and so steadily acquiring. Susannah Hall and her 
husband were the executors. The law secured the 
dowry of Shakespeare's wife to her use, and gave 
her a life interest in New Place; and knowing 
well the tender sympathy afterwards exhibited in 
the epitaph inscribed upon her tomb, Shakespeare 
doubtless felt himself safe in trusting his wife to 
her daughter's care. This might have been made 
necessary by the state of her health. 

When the will was brought to Shakespeare's 
bedside the alterations made were such as affection 
suggested or the full sense required. Observing 
that he had given to his daughter Susannah all 
his silver plate, he took pains to mention that his 
"broad silver gilt bowle" was to be given to Judith. 
He remembered that his wife would want the 



68 ' AN OUTLINE OF THE 

"second-best" bed, in addition to whatever tbe 
law would give her, and he observed that the house 
in Henley Street had not been properly secured 
to his sister. The manner in wliich he provides 
for " Joan Harte " suggests the idea that she had 
remained in the Henley-Street house ever since her 
father's death, perhaps supported by her brother's 
purse. It was necessary also to add a clause re- 
minding Susannah that " !N"ew Place " was given 
to her especially to secure certain ends; among 
them, perhaps, some special care of her mother. 

In the first draft of the will Shakespeare had 
given handsome legacies to the poor of Strat- 
ford, Thomas Eussell, and Francis Collins. He 
had given his sword to Thomas Combe, and cer- 
tain sums in gold to William Walker, his godson, 
as well as Anthony and John l^ash. At the last 
moment he leaves rings to Ham net Sadler, William 
Eeynoldes, and his " fellows," Heminges, Burbage, 
and Condell. Owing to the irregularity of the 
paper, five witnesses signed it. It is a little 
curious that in the copy of the will printed by 
Theobald in 1767, "my second-hest bed" reads 
"hrown best bed;" but as the reading has not 
been followed it is doubtless an error. 

Joan Harte's husband died on the 17th of April, 
and on the 23d Shakespeare himself 



LIFE OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEAEE. 69 

On the 2 5 til the funeral was solemnized. His 
body was deposited in the chancel, the honorary- 
resting-place of the owners of the tithes. Strange 
indeed that we know nothing of him who read the 
prayers at his grave, of the friends who gathered 
to do him honour, or the pall-bearers who bore the 
body to its rest ! 

Far away in Virginia, for a long time sheltered 
by forest trees, and more recently removed to a 
graveyard, is a stone commemorating one who died 
in the seventeenth century, — " one of the pall- 
bearers of William Shakespeare." Can there be 
any truth in the legend ? 

A few years after the death of Shakespeare, 
certainly before the year 1623, a monument was 
erected to him in Stratford church. It is sup- 
posed to have been set up by Dr. Hall and his 
wife, but as it was made in London by Gerard 
Johnson, a well-known sculptor, whose place of 
business was near Blackfriars' Theatre, I cannot 
help thinking that it was far more likely to have 
been made to the order of his " fellowes " at the 
theatre, assisted by his personal friends. It was 
certainly ordered by some one not in the councils 
of the family, for it speaks of Shakespeare as 
having been placed " within this monument " by 
"envious Death," whereas his body rested in a 



70 AN OUTLINE OF THE 

simple grave some distance from the wall. If the 
Halls had erected the monument, Dr. Hall would 
probably have furnished the verses ; and with his 
well-known Puritan tendencies we can hardly 
imagine him as rating Shakespeare's dramatic work 
so high as to say that with him "Quick nature 
died." 

Gerard Johnson must have been perfectly fa- 
miliar with the face and form of Shakespeare, as 
he went back and forth at Blackfriars'. He rep- 
resented the poet with a cushion before him, a pen 
in his right hand, and his left resting on a roll of 
papers. 

This bust is supposed to have been made after 
a mask or cast of the face taken after death by 
the artist, as was not uncommon at the time. 

It is believed that the famous " Death Mask," a 
cast discovered in a private museum, is the original 
mask, as it bears the date of his death, 1616, in- 
scribed upon it. It is so much nobler and sweeter 
than any existing likeness of him, it looks so 
much more as we would have liked Shakespeare 
to look, that we long to find it proved. 

"The bust," says Wivell, "is fixed under an 
arch between two Corinthian columns of black 
marble, with gilded bases and capitals supporting 
the entablature. Above this, and surmounted by a 



LIFE OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEAEE. 71 

Death's head, are carved his arms. On each side 
is a cherub in a sitting posture, one holding in his 
hand a spade, and the other an inverted torch, 
while one hand rests upon a skull." 

The bust was at first coloured. The eyes were 
hazel and the hair auburn, of the same colour as 
that clinging to the "Death Mask." The dress 
was a scarlet doublet, over which a loose black 
gown without sleeves was thrown. The whole 
figure has been two or three times repainted, and 
has little interest now as a likeness of the poet. 

On a tablet below the bust is the following 
inscription : — 

** Judicio Pyliim, genio Socratem, arte Maronem. 
Terra tegit, populiis moeret, Olympus habet. 

" Stay, Passenger, why goest thou by so fast ? 
Eead, if thou canst, whom envious Death hath placed 
Within this monument : Shakespeare, with whom 
Quick nature died, whose name doth deck this Tomhe 
Far more than cost ; sith all that he hath writ 
Leaves hving Art but page to serve his wit. 

*' Obiit Anno Domini, 1616, 
^tatis 53, die 23 April." 

If we translate freely the two Latin lines we 

have : — 

" Wise as the man of Pylos, inspired like Socrates, and with 
the skill of Maro. 
Earth covers, the people mourn, and Olympus holds him." 



72 AN OUTLINE OF THE 

It has been said that Shakespeare died a Pa- 
pist, — a rumour which simply meant, I suppose, 
that he did not die a Puritan. I am not a 
proper judge of the Latin verses of Shakespeare's 
time, but I risk little in saying that if any com- 
promising Puritan had thought fit to write this 
epitaph he would hardly have made these over- 
strained and somewhat affected references to 
Nestor and Virgil. They sound much more like 
Ben Jonson than Dr. Hall. 

Those who are of opinion that the grave of 
Shakespeare should be opened, draw pregnant con- 
clusions from the spade in the cherub's hand, and 
the words " within this monument." If, however, 
these words had any cabalistic meaning, they 
would not point toward the grave, but toward 
some enclosure behind the panel of the monument 
itself 

Judith Shakespeare was the longest lived of the 
poet's family. Her three children died early. 
Her husband, Thomas Queeney, was a burgess and 
a chamberlain, and for some years a prosperous 
man. He eventually fell into idle ways, became 
bankrupt, and was supported by a brother in 
London. Judith died at Stratford in 1662. 

Dr. Hall, Susannah's husband, was a skilful 
man, whose services were sought at great distances 



LIFE OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEAEE. 73 

by many who did not approve of his Puritanism. 
He was a hot, impetuous person, continually quar- 
relling with the Corporation. He had sold his 
share of the tithes some time before his death, in 
1635, but the Corporation did not refuse him the 
honour of lying beside the poet in the chancel. It 
is probably to his pen that we owe the epitaph on 
Anne Hathaway, who lived only seven years after 
her husband. She died Aug. 8, 1623, at the age of 
sixty-seven. In 1642 a surgeon named Cooke went 
to New Place to look at some books which Susan- 
nah Hall offered for sale. He saw that two of 
them were Latin manuscripts prepared by Dr. 
Hall himself for the press, but his widow refused 
to believe it. One of them, a portion of a medical 
diary, was afterwards translated into English, and 
published by Cooke. 

On July 11, 1649, Susannah died, and on the 
gravestone a charming character is recorded : — 

" Witty above her sex, but that 's not all : 
Wise to salvation was good Mistress Hall. 
Something of Shakspere was in that, but this 
Wholly of him with whom she 's now in bliss, 
Then passenger, hast ne'er a tear 
To weep with her, that wept with all ? 
That wept, yet set herself to cheer 
Them up, with comforts cordial ? 
Her love shall live, her mercy spread 
When thou hast ne'er a tear to shed." 



74 AN OUTLINE OF THE 

By this it will be seen that while Susannah 
inherited her wit from the poet, she owed " wis- 
dom unto salvation " to the influence of the Puritan 
husband to whom she was now reunited. Bright 
intelligence, religious fervour, and warm sym- 
pathies may well have belonged to Shakespeare's 
oldest child. 

Elizabeth Hall was the only grandchild of 
Shakespeare who lived long enough to marry, and 
the only child of her parents. She was married 
at the age of eighteen to a man of property in 
Stratford named Thomas Nash, fifteen years older 
than herself They had no children. During the 
year 1643 she and her husband entertained Queen 
Henrietta Maria at New Place for three days. 
The Queen had come at the head of two thousand 
foot and a thousand horse to visit the town. 
Prince Eupert met her there, and the Corpora- 
tion paid the expenses. It was a season of great 
festivity. 

When she w^as left a widow twenty years after, 
Elizabeth was in her forty-third year, and she mar- 
ried a second time, her husband being a man of 
wealth and position from Northamptonshire, named 
John Barnard, who was afterwards knighted. 

It is impossible not to feel an intense interest 
in any one who sustained personal relations with 



LIFE OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 75 

Shakespeare. What would we not give to talk 
with any one who had talked with him ? Eor that 
reason, Dr. John Hall's 

" Select Observations on English Bodies " 
possessed a great attraction for me. Mr. Halliwell- 
Phillips, while admitting that it contains some 
notes on his own illnesses, and those of his wife 
and daughter, asserts that, as it contains nothing 
bearing upon Shakespeare, it is of no interest. By 
comparing the Doctor's notes upon the different 
members of his family, I found enough to make 
me feel thankful that none of Shakespeare's de- 
scendants through Elizabeth Hall should survive. 
Lady Barnard inherited her father's temperament ; 
and the nervous affection of the face, which he 
subdued with so much difficulty in his daughter's 
youth, showed itself in him as soon as he was 
exhausted by his professional labours. Among 
other things, he ordered his "only daughter," as 
he writes with mournful pathos, to " eat nutmegs." 
This remedy for nervous restlessness is still used 
in rural regions ; and a " cup of hot milk, well 
sugared, with half a nutmeg grated into it," is still 
considered, in country places, a good " night-cap " 
for those who sleep little. 

Elizabeth died at the age of sixty-two, devising 
her property to kinsfolk and collateral relatives. 



76 AN OUTLINE OF THE 

With her death, in 1670, ends our interest in the 
property which Shakespeare so diligently accu- 
mulated for a posterity which was never to exist. 
There is a great contrast between the plain stone 
which covers Shakespeare's grave, with its homely 
inscription, and the elaborate monument set in the 
wall not five paces from it. In Shakespeare's time 
it was customary to hire a grave for a short time 
only, and then remove the bones of the dead to 
the common charnel-house. In this way, nine 
years after the great poet's death, the celebrated 
Puritan minister, John Eobinson, was buried in 
the church at Leyden, where his wife hired a 
" three-months " grave. An account of his funeral 
was preserved ; and as it was impossible to find any 
traces of interment, scholars were much perplexed 
until a younger brother of Charles Sumner made 
a thorough search in the old records and discov- 
ered the facts. As late as the beginning of the 
eighteenth century, a traveller named Ireland re- 
ported the offensive condition of the Stratford 
charnel-house; and it was probably in loving 
recognition of some feeling that Shakespeare had 
expressed, that the famous '' curse " was set upon 
his grave. 

William Hall, who visited Shakespeares' grave 
in 1694, and whose manuscript account of what 



LIFE OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEAEE. 77 

he found is preserved in the Bodleian Library, 
states that, to carry out the desire expressed in 
the lines engraved upon the poet's tombstone, they 
had laid his body seventeen feet below the sur- 
face, where one would think that by this time 
identification would be impossible. 

Seven years after Shakespeare's death his two 
friends, Heminges and Condell, to each of whom 
he had left a ring, brought out his Plays. These 
men were, like himself, proprietors of the Globe 
and Blackfriars', and the owners of all Shake- 
speare's Plays. If Shakespeare had ever wanted 
to print them, he could not have done it without 
buying the manuscripts back ; but when he died, 
he was probably in the full vigour of authorship, 
and had little thought that the time had come 
when he should undertake it. If his friends ex- 
pected to make money by giving them to the 
reading public, the task was quite as much under- 
taken to " keep his memory alive." 

We cannot doubt that these two friends knew 
who wrote the plays. Betterton " more than once 
assured Gildon that the first folio contained all 
those [plays] that were truely his." Betterton had 
been an officer at " Blackfriars'," and knew what 
the players thought. There are several contem- 
poraneous statements as to the carelessness and 



78 AN OUTLINE OF THE 

rapidity with which Shakespeare wrote. That 
Ben Jonson knew Shakespeare as the author of 
the Plays, his Eulogy and the verses inscribed 
beneath the Droeshout portrait certainly show. 
It is not my intention to enter on any discus- 
sion of the Bacon v. Shakespeare controversy ; 
but I hope these pages will prove that we know 
as much of Shakespeare as we could expect to 
know of a man who Kved three hundred years 
ago. 

As to the preservation of his manuscripts, they 
were probably worn out in the service of those 
who had bought them before the First Folio was 
printed ; and his letters and private papers may 
well have perished in the great fire at Stratford, in 
the years of the plague, or in the two great fires 
which finally swept off the face of London every 
building that was connected with his history, with 
the one exception already indicated. 

As to his social station, it was that to which 
[N'ew England is indebted for her best citizens, — 
for the Winthrops, the Peabodys, the Eogerses, 
the Lawrences, and the Appletons ; for when not 
described as soldiers or clergymen, these emigrants 
were described as yeomen. 

That John Shakespeare was ever seriously em- 
barrassed, — or more embarrassed than any man 



LIFE OF WILLIAM SHAIO^SPEARE. 79 

may be who mortgages one piece of property to 
buy another, ^ — admits of doubt. That he is con- 
stantly mentioned as "Mr. John Shakespeare," 
shows the consideration in which he was held. As 
to William Shakespeare's character, it is not often 
that we have so graphic a portrait of any man 
as that preserved of him by Ben Jonson in his 
" Discoveries ; " and no one could apply that por- 
trait to the well-known features of Francis Bacon 
without a supreme sense of the ridiculous : — 

" I remember the players have often mentioned, 
as an honour to Shakespeare, that, in his writing, 
whatsoever he penned, he never blotted a line. My 
answer hath been, would he had blotted a thou- 
sand, which they thought a malevolent speech. I 
had not told posterity this, but for their ignorance, 
who choose that circumstance to commend their 
friend by, wherein he most faulted, and to justify 
mine own Candour, for I loved the man, and do 
honor his memorie on this side idolatrie as much 
as any. He was indeed honest, and of an open 
and free nature ; had an excellent phantasie, brave 
notions, and gentle expressions, wherein he flowed 
with that facility that sometime it was neces- 
sarie he should be stoped. His wit was in his 
own power; would the rule of it had been 
so too." 



80 AN OUTLINE OF THE 

" Many times he fell into those things would 
not escape laughter, as when he said of Cesar, — 
one speaking to him : ' Cesar, thou dost me wrong/ 
he replied, ' Cesar did never wrong but with just 
cause,' and such like, which were ridiculous; but 
he redeemed his vices with his virtues. There 
was ever more in him to be praysed than to be 
pardoned." 

This criticism, which few close students of hu- 
man nature will be found to accept, is here quoted 
to show how peremptorily Ben Jonson claimed the 
Plays of Shakespeare for the man he knew and 
loved. When he rendered the works of Francis 
Bacon into Latin, it was not because he loved him 
" as much as any this side idolatrie." 

There are few personal relics of Shakespeare 
which can be authenticated. It is singular that 
not a piece of his silver is known to exist. In 
Philadelphia, Horace Howard Furness possesses a 
pair of gauntlets which once belonged to the poet. 
When Garrick was preparing for the Jubilee at 
Stratford, in 1769, John Ward, an actor, and the 
maternal grandfather of Mrs. Siddons, wrote him 
a letter accompanying a gift of a pair of buckskin 
gauntlets worked with gold thread. These gloves. 
Ward asserted, were given him as a compliment 
after his performance of " Othello " at Stratford, in 



LIFE OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEAKE. 81 

1746, whicli was undertaken to assist in repairing 
Shakespeare's monument. The donor was a cer- 
tain William Shakespeare, glazier, who said he 
was descended from a cousin of the poet's father. 
We have a pleasant and early reminiscence of one 
of Shakespeare's great-nephews, who said that 
when he was a boy, the children of the family 
used to dress up in the poet's disused garments. 
Ward was at this time a very old man, and had 
probably forgotten some of the details, for they 
are not quite credible as they stand in the first 
volume of the private correspondence of Garrick. 
In 1769, however. Ward gave these gloves in full 
faith to Garrick, who left them in his will to Mrs. 
Siddons, who was Ward's granddaughter. Mrs. 
Siddons gave them to her daughter, Mrs. George 
Combe, and Mrs. Combe in her turn presented 
them to Fanny Kemble, from whose keeping they 
naturally passed into the library of her friend, Hor- 
ace Howard Furness, the Shakespearian scholar. 

The wonderful industry of Shakespeare has left 
its own proof in " Venus and Adonis," " The Eape 
of Lucrece," the Sonnets, and the thirty-seven 
wonderful Plays. If it were a miracle that such a 
man could exist, it was still more of a miracle that 
this man met acceptance and reward in his life- 
time. It is certain that he was idolized by the 

6 



82 AN OUTLINE OF THE 

people, sought by the nobility, petted by the Court, 
and admired by both Elizabeth and James, in spite 
of his freedom from pedantry. It was no miracle 
that he accumulated property, — that was the 
natural result of industry and thrift, — but that 
he kept so high a tone in all he wrote, in an age 
of great coarseness and ribaldry, and kept it with- 
out losing popular favour, argues a miraculous 
charm in the man himself, such as Ben Jonson 
attributes to him. - 

The following anecdote seems worth preserving 
in view of Ben Jonson's opinion of the poet's 
scholarship. Shakespeare was godfather to a child 
of Ben Jonson. After the baptism he was stand- 
ing pensively apart, and Jonson went up to him, 
saying, " What 's the matter, Will ? " " Why, Ben," 
replied the poet, " I was only thinking what gift I 
might bestow upon my godson. I have it ! I will 
give him a dozen Latin spoones, and thou, Ben, 
shalt translate them ! " This little legend reads as 
if Shakespeare had heard of the " small Latine and 
lesse Greeke." 

Those who take no interest whatever in what 
is called the "Baconian" controversy have often 
been heard to wonder that we have no evidence 
of any acquaintance between Bacon and Shake- 
speare, the two greatest intellects of their time. 



LIFE OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEAEE. 83 

These men must have crossed each other's path 
continually ; but one was primarily a poet and 
an actor, the other a statesman and a scientist. 
Shakespeare shows in his Plays that he sprung 
from the people ; he cared for the people, — their 
liberties, their rights, and their interests. Perhaps 
he had at first some desire to take a practical part 
in politics, but the death of Essex made this im- 
possible ; and never after Essex died could a man 
of his upright dealing and tender heart have 
clasped hands. with Lord Bacon. It might have 
been Bacon's duty to withdraw from Essex ; it 
could never have been his duty, except as a mean 
effort towards self-preservation, to become his pub- 
lic prosecutor, still less to garble the records of 
his examination before their publication. After 
this, any intimacy with Shakespeare would have 
been impossible. After Bacon's return to England 
in 1580, he was in such disgrace at Court that, 
unless at the playhouse, he would hardly have 
encountered Shakespeare. 

Whoever wishes to understand the popularity 
of the thirty-seven Plays, to ascertain the manner 
in which editions, spurious or other, were put forth 
year after year, and how, when it was impossible 
to prevent unscrupulous persons from printing, 
Shakespeare himself was obliged to revise and 



84 AN OUTLINE OF THE 

amplify them, must consult the records furnished 
by Hallivvell-Phillips. Such a theme does not 
suit this brief biography. 

It is supposed that Shakespeare devoted a good 
deal of time to classical study during the last years 
of his life, for the three Eoman plays show so 
intimate an acquaintance, not only with Eoman 
manners, but with Eoman diction and modes of 
thought, as to make this probable. 

Fifty years after Shakespeare's death, the Eev. 
John Ward became vicar of Stratford. He found 
the town full of traditions respecting Shakespeare, 
of whom he apparently knew nothing. Shake- 
speare's granddaughter was then alive, but she was 
at Abington Manor, near ITorthampton. Some of 
us would have gone to see her, to find out all that 
she could tell, but the new vicar was not that sort 
of man. He was astonished to find everybody 
talking about Shakespeare. He heard a great 
many foolish legends, but not a scandalous word 
concerning the poet's relation to his wife, nor his 
treatment of her in his will. He wrote down 
what he heard, and made a memorandum to the 
effect that he must study up the Plays, in order to 
be able to talk about them ! 

From the hour that Anne Hathaway married 
Shakespeare, to the hour of her death, we hear no 



LIFE OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEAEE. 85 

word of her. The common English law of the 
time justified Shakespeare's will. Without any 
word of his, it gave her a life-interest in all that 
he had inherited, and a life-interest in itsTew Place, 
as he held it by direct conveyance. Dr. Hall and 
his wife had probably been living at New Place 
for some years, and her life went on after the 
poet's death in the same tranquil manner that it 
had done during his life. She expressed but one 
wish, — to be laid near her husband, — and that 
was not regarded. In deference to the feeling 
indicated by the words, — 

" Good friends, for Jesus' sake forheare," 

she was not interred in the same grave. I do 
not know that the inscription upon her grave- 
stone, said to have been written in Latin by Dr. 
Hall, has ever been translated. It is much better 
verse than was common. It scans well, and seems 
to me to have both beauty and strength. It is her 
daughter who addresses her, and the following is a 
literal translation of the lines : — 

" My life, thy breast, thy milk tkou gavest, mother. 
Ah me, for gifts so great I give a stone ! 
Would that some good angel might lift that stone. 
And thy spirit come forth like the body of Christ ! 
But prayers avail not. Come quickly, Jesus, 
Though shut in the tomb, she shall seek the stars." 



THE FAMILY OF RICHAED 
SHAKESPEAEE. 



THE FAMILY OF EICHAED SHAKESPEARE. 

EiCHAED Shakespeaee of Snitterfield had sons, 
Henry and John. 

John married Mary Arden, 1557, and had a 
large family, of whom only William, Joan Harte, 
Eichard, Gilbert, and Edmnnd seem to have lived 
to maturity. 

Joan Harte had several sons. 

Eichard died unmarried three years before his 
brother. 

Gilbert went into some business in London, 
but returned to Stratford, and acted as agent for 
his brother. He is supposed to have died in 
1612. 

Edmund was a player, who died in Southwark, 
and was buried at St. Saviour's, Dec. 31, 1607. 



THE FAMILY OF WILLIAM 
SHAKESPEAEE. 



THE FAMILY OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEAEE. 

William Shakespeare, born 1564, married Anne 
Hathaway, born 1556, in 1582. Anne Hathaway's 
family is not known certainly. They had 

Susannah, born 1583, married Dr. John Hall, 
1607, died 1649. 

Hamnet, twin to Judith, born 1585, died 1596. 

Judith, twin to Hamnet, born 1585, married 
Thomas Queeney, 1616, died 1662. 

Susannah and John Hall had Elizabeth Hall, 
born 1608, married, first, Thomas Nash, 1626 ; and 
second, Sir John Barnard, 1649. She died with- 
out issue, 1670, when the poet's lineage became 
extinct. 

The orthography of all proper names used in 
these pages is uncertain and constantly varied. 
I prefer Queeney to Quiney, as it indicates the 
ISTorman origin and pronunciation. 



THE PEESONAL CHAEACTEE OE 

shae:espeaee. 



THE PERSONAL CHARACTEE OF 
SHAKESPEARE. 

** Lilies tliat fester smell far worse tlian weeds." 

Shakespeake. 

Mr. Halliwell-Phillips follows the example 
of other authors in constantly reiterating that 
nothing which is to be found in Shakespeare's 
Plays can be for one moment considered as in- 
dicative of his personal character. I cannot for 
one moment admit this. I am well aware that a 
very bad man may write eloquently in defence of 
virtue, but the how he writes of it will inevitably 
betray his want of sympathy with it. 

It does not trouble me to know that after a 
merry bout with the " sippers " of Bidford, Shake- 
speare might have found himself obliged to pass 
a night under the old tree on the high-road, which 
was called, until its decayed condition made it 
necessary to remove it, " Shakespeare's canopy." 

Excessive drinking was hardly considered in 
his time a bad habit, certainly it was by very few 
regarded as a vice ; but if this anecdote be true, 

7 



98 PERSONAL CHARACTER OF SHAKESPEARE. 

still we know from all the evidences of his life 
that Shakespeare was not a drunkard. Honesty 
and thrift distinguished him, as every intelligent 
reader of the advice of Polonius to Laertes would 
expect. 

As to his Jpersonal reserve and chastity, united 
as they must have been to a natural love of fun 
and a most genial disposition, we find the proof of 
it in the exquisite sensitiveness which he shows 
to those traits in his women. George Gordon 
Byron could never have been the author of Cor- 
delia, Portia, or Miranda. 

I think no author of his time could have treated 
the voluptuous story of " Yenus and Adonis " as 
Shakespeare treated it. All through the hot air of 
its passion a fresh, pure breeze of something higher 
trembles, and I am astonished that more has not 
been made of this point by critics. His " Lucrece " 
was considered in his own time " a perfect expo- 
sition of a woman's chastity," and that exposi- 
tion a gross man could neither have made nor 
understood. 

Very delicate and discriminating observations 
on character abound in his Plays and Sonnets; 
and such qualities as they show do not belong 
to those who have blunted their own perceptions 
by degrading habits. 



PERSONAL CHARACTER OF SHAKESPEARE. 99 

Personally he would have been mucli better 
known to the world if he had carried his family 
to London. In Stratford he could have found 
little to induce him to enter general society, and 
his time must have been well occupied with 
business and composition. 

He wrote as a bird sings, and therefore the 
ethics of his Plays are the natural evolution of 
their dramatic purpose, but were never intention- 
ally included in his plan. 

In politics he seems to me to have been from 
the beginning the unconscious mouth-piece of a 
very liberal party. The death of Essex was per- 
haps a not unneeded lesson, and the ultimate 
purposes of the earl must have been a startling 
surprise. 



DELIA BACOK 



DELIA BACOK 

It has been the custom of sincere students of 
Shakespeare's life who believe, as I do, in his 
identity, to ignore wholly what is now called the 
" Baconian Theory of the Origin of the Plays ; " 
and by alluding to it, I may have offended the 
taste of more than one reader. 

It seems to me, however, that the literature con- 
nected with the subject has now reached such 
proportions that wholly to ignore it is at once 
cowardly and absurd; but I have still another 
reason for alluding to it, personal to myself 

I knew and loved Delia Bacon. She was a 
woman of the rarest personal gifts, of whom no 
suitable record remains, if we except the wonderful 
story of the ecclesiastical trial, written by Cathe- 
rine Beecher, in " Truth Stranger than Fiction." 

A terrible personal experience warped her mind 
soon after she entered upon her historical studies. 
The warp was shown when a nature essentially of 
the noblest turned mean and suspicious. To ob- 
tain means to pursue her Shakespearian researches, 



104 DELIA BACON. 

she gave lectures on History in several American 
cities, among others in Boston, where men like 
Ealph Waldo Emerson, William Henry Channing, 
and many of their compeers found delight in lis- 
tening to her. 

Even now, it is only necessary to close my eyes, 
to see once more that graceful form which always 
suggested the priestess of Apollo, to hear again the 
vibrant voice which penetrated to one's inmost soul. 
After she had perfected her theory, she never com- 
municated it fully to any one ; she seemed to fear 
that her laurels would be stolen if she did so. In 
the month of January, 1856, there appeared in 
" Putnam's Monthly," an article entitled, 

" William Shakspere and his Plays, an 
enquiry concerning them." 
This article was the first public utterance of Delia 
Bacon, and then and there began this famous con- 
troversy. I forget what I thought of it then, ex- 
cept that I did not in any wise agree with it ; but 
as I go back to it, it grieves me bitterly, its coarse- 
ness and flippancy seem so unworthy of, and so 
unlike, my friend. Other articles were promised ; 
but a good deal of literary indignation had been 
aroused, and the publishers thought proper to de- 
cline them. Miss Bacon then went to England 
and to Stratford, and before long her very remarka- 



DELIA BACON. 105 

ble critical volume called "The Philosophy of 
Shakspere's Plays/' was issued, and introduced 
by Hawthorne. Before she left this country she 
discussed her method of publication with Mr. 
Emerson and myself, and probably with many 
others. She said that she drew her evidences of 
Prancis Bacon's authorship from two sources, the 
internal and the external. She found them in the 
Plays themselves, and outside of the Plays, in his- 
tory. She wished to publish in two large octavo 
volumes. She had enough of each sort of material 
to fill a volume ; which should she print first ? 

I said : " The facts, by all means, if you have 
them." 

Mr. Emerson said : " Your inductions, by all 
means; and then clinch them with your facts." 

It is hardly necessary to say that she followed 
Emerson's advice. 

After her most unhappy death, — a death preci- 
pitated by sorrow, loneliness, privation, and conse- 
quent despair, — I wrote to her brother and asked 
permission to examine her papers, with a view 
to preparing some memorial of a life which, in 
spite of some mistakes, had been exceptionally 
noble. 

Permission was refused ; and as her family had 
not the slightest sympathy with her later pursuits. 



106 DELIA BACON. 

it is possible that all her papers have been de- 
stroyed. They would undoubtedly have been very 
valuable to literary people, for she was an indefati- 
gable and zealous copyist. 

Mr. Emerson wished very much to review her 
"Philosophy of the Plays." He held the very 
highest estimate of the critical ability and wonder- 
ful insight which her book displayed. He came 
to me once to ask if I could suggest any volumes 
which would assist him to illustrate her purpose. 
He said that he could not have the " seeing eye ; " 
she found so much, and he so little. 

But, after all this, the reader must be reminded 
that Delia Bacon formed her theory before Mr. 
Halliwell-Phillips's researches had begun; before 
Shakespeare emerged from the mists of Blackfriars' 
and the Globe, and stood before us as a well-known 
citizen of no small use in his time in other ways 
than as a 

" Maker of playes." 



A HISTORY OF THE ACCUMULATIONS 

OF 

JOHN AND WILLIAM SHAKESPEAEE 

FROM 1550 TO 1616. 

To this I add a detailed account of the application for a 
" coat of armour." I consider Mr. Halliwell-Phillips the highest 
authority in all that concerns the life of William Shakespeare. 
"When I differ from him it is where I think' that in his anxiety 
concerning the more important points, he has overlooked the 
obvious bearing of many minor admissions. 



accumulatio:n"s of john and william 
shakespeaee. 

John Shakespeare was born at Snitterfield about 
the year 1530, for we are to suppose that tie must 
have been of age when he went to Stratford. 

His father Eichard must have had a well-kept 
farm under the squires of Arden, for in 1543 
Thomas Atwoode, of Stratford, leaves to Eichard 
Shakespeare, by will, "foure oxen then in his 
keeping." 

In 1550 John had left home ; and in 1556, by 
the purchase of two houses in Stratford, one being 
in Greenhill, the other the famous Henley-Street 
property, he had provided himself with premises 
where a family could reside, and wool-skins and 
other farm produce be sold. 

In 1557 he married Mary Arden, the daughter 
of Eobert Arden, Squire of Asbyes. She had re- 
ceived from her father, who died about a year 
before her marriage, a farm at Snitterfield, a house 
with sixty acres of land, and all appurtenances, 
at Wilmecote, called Asbyes, and a third of the 



110 ACCUMULATIONS OF 

farm tenanted by her husband's father, Eichard 
Shakespeare. 

Stratford took note of John Shakespeare's cir- 
cumstances, and for twelve years he rose steadily 
through all the offices in the gift of the Corpor- 
ation, till in 1569 he became high bailiff and 
mayor of Stratford. It has sometimes been as- 
serted that it was the growing wealth and ambition 
of the poet which led his father to apply for a 
" coat of armour," but this is a mistake. It was 
in 1569, when William Shakespeare was only five 
years old, that, stimulated partly by a desire to 
keep up the Arden estate, and partly by the wish 
to keep alive the memory of honours conferred by 
Henry VII. upon his grandfather after the battle of 
Bosworth, John Shakespeare applied for his grant. 
The grant was made by Kobert Cooke Clarencieux, 
king-at-arms, and confirmed by William Dethick 
Garter, principal king-at-arms. 

In 1575 he purchased two houses of Edmund 
and Emma Hall in Stratford. 

In 1578, probably to raise money for the pur- 
chase of outlying farms, to which allusion is made 
in the papers describing William Shakespeare's 
"inheritances," he mortgaged Asbyes. 

In 1578 he became bondsman for Eichard Hatha- 
way, w^hich indicates that after this mortgage he 



JOHN AND WILLIAM SHAKESPEAEE. Ill 

was supposed to be in good circumstances. This 
year he was " taxed one half/' which seems to 
me to indicate, not that he had grown poor, but 
that he had removed beyond the limits of the 
parish. 

In 1579 he sold to Eobert Webbe the two Arden 
messuages at Snitterfield. In this year he is styled 
a yeoman, and is not " taxed " at all. The " taxes " 
referred to are not " tithes " or taxes upon his 
houses in Stratford, but his poor rate, — his share 
of the expenses proper to the parish. 

When, in 1569, John Shakespeare applied for a 
" coat of armour," there is little doubt, I think, that 
he intended to remove from town and lead the life 
of a country squire. To do this, capital was neces- 
sary, and on that account he was at last obliged 
to mortgage Asbyes. His wife's brother-in-law, 
Edmund Lambert, took an unfair advantage of his 
circumstances, and when he was ready to lift the 
mortgage, in 1580, the home to which Mary Arden 
had expected to return was not open to her ; 
Lambert refused the money. 

In 1586, in a process for debt against one John 
Shakespeare, the sergeant-at-arms reports that 
there is " nothing to distrain upon." If this entry 
actually concerns the poet's father, I consider it 
another proof of non-residence, — there was noth- 



112 ACCUMULATIONS OF 

ing to distrain "upon within the borough. If he 
had come to absolute want, why did he not mort- 
gage or sell the Stratford property which his son 
inherited ? In this year he was removed from the 
Corporation for non-attendance. This is another 
proof of non-residence. Bishopton and Welcombe, 
where the poet inherited property of which we 
have no account, and which may have been part 
of that bestowed by Henry YII. upon his ances- 
tor, were within the limits of Stratford parish, 
and beyond tlie borough. Later, John is men- 
tioned as one of nine men who do not come to 
church for fear of being arrested for debt, — an- 
other proof of non-residence. If he lived in 
the town he could be arrested any day. 

In 1587 it was arranged, with the consent of 
William Shakespeare, that^ on cancelling the 
mortgage and paying £20, the heir of Edmund 
Lambert should receive an absolute title to the 
estate of Asbyes. The poet had been in Lon- 
don for five years. He had probably left his 
family in the Henley-Street house, and if John 
Shakespeare removed to the country they were 
doubtless left behind. When the poet returned 
to London, if he went abroad, as I think, he felt 
secure that the best thing had been done for his 
father's interests ; but the arrangement was never 



JOHN AND WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 113 

carried out. In close connection with the entries 
that concern John Shakespeare in the Corporation 
books, appears the name of Eobert Bratt. When 
Bratt is to be taxed, the entry is : " Nothing in this 
place ; " and immediately following is another : 
"Every alderman shall be taxed to pay weekly 
toward the relief of the poor, fourpence, saving- 
John Shaxpeare and Eobert Bratt, who shall not 
be taxed to pay anything." Are we not justified 
in thinking that the exemption was the result of 
non-residence in both cases ? 

In 1596 the poet is taxed in South wark, where 
he was probably living with his younger brother 
Edmund ; and his father, having rallied from the 
unfortunate circumstances into which the mortgage 
had plunged him, applied again for his " coat of 
armour." Asbyes was in chancery ; but the 
heralds report that he showed a previous patent, 
and made a memorandum on the grant that he 
had been chief of&cer of Stratford ; " that he hath 
lands and tenements of good wealth, and substance 
five hundred pounds ; that he married a daughter 
and heir of Arden, a gentleman of worship." The 
next year a bill is filed for the recovery of Asbyes. 
There was no want of money then, for William is 
buying arable land at Shottery, and the Corporation 
would be glad to have him bid for the tithes. 

8 



114 ACCUMULATIONS OF 

Mary Arden had expected to leave her inheritance 
to her son ; but as this expectation looked less and 
less likely to be realized, she naturally desired 
that some trace of her inheritance should survive 
in the "coat of armour;" and in 1599, when the 
poet was already famous, John Shakespeare 
petitions for the right to "impale the arms of 
Arden of Wellingcote," which was granted. 

All this had not been done without stirring the 
wrath of those gentry of " wealth and ability " who 
had sustained Edmund Lambert in his unfair deal- 
ing. Charges were brought by Ealph Brooke, a 
York herald, against Garter and Clarencieux, that 
they had wrongfully given arms to twenty-three 
persons, and among them was John Shakespeare. 
Tlie reply of the " kings," made upon the 10th of 
May, 1602, is as follows: "As for the speare in 
the bend, . . . the person to whom it was granted 
hath borne magistracy, and was justice of the 
peace at Stratford upon Avon. He married the 
daughter and heir of Arden, and was able to main- 
tain that estate." John Shakespeare had now 
been dead for six months ; but the reason why the 
poet thought fit to pursue the matter is easy to 
see. Behind Eobert Brooke he saw the gentle- 
men of the county angered, perhaps, by the " im- 
palement of the arms of Arden," and among these 



JOHN AND WILLIAM SHAKESPEAEE. 115 

he had good reason to think he saw Sir Thomas 
Lucy, or his representative. The discontent of the 
county gentlemen had been growing ever since 
1596 ; and it was an insult to his mother, which 
Shakespeare resented in the only personality of an 
unpleasant nature that we can trace to his pen. 
Some time between 1596 and July, 1600, Shake- 
speare had undoubtedly written that passage in 
the opening of the " Merry Wives of Windsor," 
which the critics have found so mysterious. The 
Welshman's scornful jest about the "dozen white 
looses'/ which " do become an old coat well," was 
a witty revenge. It is significant that the whole 
scene is a sneer at heraldic honours. The county 
gentry had sneered at the new honours granted 
to John Shakespeare's family. The pronunciation 
of the period gave the poet a chance to retort by 
a fling at the older pedigrees. The heralds had 
had ample time to come to a decision between 
1596 and 1602. The falcon which was granted to 
Shakespeare as a crest was one of the badges of 
Edward IV., the father-in-law of Henry YIL, and 
carried, like the Stuart lion, by special favour. 

The facts of this application for a "grant of 
armour," extending from 1^6^ to 1602, dispose 
finally of the story of John Shakespeare's exces- 
sive poverty. They show that John Shakespeare 



116 ACCUMULATIONS OF 

looked upon himself neither as a butcher, nor a 
glover, nor a wool-stapler, but as a gentleman 
sprung from the English yeomanry, anxious to 
secure to his son whatever benefit might spring 
from that acknowledged position. We can hardly 
think the poet himself cared much for heraldic 
honours ; but we like to think of him as sustain- 
ing the application, because his father made it in 
the face of a pronounced social opposition. There 
is a certain pleasant audacity in the motto he 

bore, — 

"Not without eight." 

As John Shakespeare left no will, we do not 
know exactly in what way his property passed to 
his son, or whether he took possession of any part 
of it before his father's death. A side light is 
thrown upon the matter by a deed of covenant, 
dated 1639, made to levy a fine on a resettlement 
of the Shakespeare estate after the death of the 
poet's son-in-law, Dr. Hall. After rehearsing all 
the well-known properties of Shakespeare, the 
conveyance goes on to speak of "land, arable, 
meadowe and pasture, with thappurtenances ly- 
ing and being in the towns, hamblets, villages, 
feildes, and groundes of Stratford upon Avon, 
Old Stratford, Bishopton, and Welcombe, or any 
of them in the said countie of Warwicke, which 



JOHN AND WILLIAM SHAKESPEAEE. 117 

heretofore were the inheritance of William Shak- 
sperO; gent., deceased." 

This may point to the investments which led 
John Shakespeare to mortgage Asbyes and sell out 
at Snitterfield; or to the endowments of Henry 
VII. ; and also shows that no embarrassment had 
existed sufficient to deprive the son of any portion 
of the inheritance. 

In the month of May, 1602, "William Shake- 
speare is recognized as a resident of Stratford. 
As such he buys one hundred and seven acres of 
land from the Combes, which are delivered to his 
brother Gilbert in his absence. In 1597, five 
years before, he had bought ISTew Place and fitted 
it up for his family. If my theory of his life is 
correct, his wife and children removed from the 
Henley-Street wool-shop about 1598,'leaving Joan 
Harte in possession of the house. Her mother 
must have remained there until her death in 
1608. 

On the 28th of September, 1602, Shakespeare 
bought a cottage and garden opposite [N'ew Place, 
from one "Walter Getly ; in 1603 he bought a 
messuage, with barns, gardens, and orchards, from 
one Hercules Underbill; and from 1599 to 1612 
his interest in the theatres in London was steadily 
increasing. He probably owned the wardrobes 



118 ACCUMULATIONS OF 

and properties also, as we see by their valuation 
when they were parted with. The Globe was 
open in the summer, and Blackfriars' in the 
winter. 

In 1609 he was assessed at South wark in the 
" Liberty of the Clink." Did he keep a residence 
there after his brother's death ? It does not ap- 
pear that he owned any property there. His 
technical residence must have been in Stratford 
from the time of his purchase of N"ew Place, al- 
though he was probably absent six months out of 
every year until he sold out of the theatres. On 
March 11, 1613, Shakespeare made his last pur- 
chase, evidently entered upon to accommodate his 
old friends at Blackfriars', where he had not ap- 
peared as an actor since 1604, and in which he 
had some years since ceased to be a proprietor. 
Some property, which they were not able at the 
moment to buy, and the possession of which may 
have been essential to their interests, was bought 
at a price so heavy that Shakespeare could hardly 
have purchased it for himself. It was sold by one 
Henry Walker to Shakespeare and certain trus- 
tees. It was mortgaged to Walker the day after 
the purchase, and after his death the trustees 
accounted for it to his heirs. 

In this sketch I have taken for granted the 



JOHN AND WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 119 

removal of John Shakespeare from the "borough of 
Stratford, and the occupation of the Henley-Street 
house, or rather the half of it called the wool-shop, 
by William Shakespeare and his family. Should 
I be mistaken in my inferences, the publication 
of them will only stimulate inquiry in new direc- 
tions ; but I think the fact of John Shakespeare's 
removal very clear. 

As to Shakespeare's residence in Henley Street, 
my own suspicion of it is strengthened by an in- 
ference which will be found on another page ; ^ but 
I will introduce it here. 

In a conveyance of premises adjoining the birth- 
place in Henley Street, July 20, 1609, the follow- 
ing paragraph occurs : — 

" between the tenemente of Thomas Hornbie on 
the easte parte and the tenemente late of William 
Shakspere on the weaste part." 

On this Mr. Halliwell-Phillips remarks : — 

" Although no doubt the result of a mere cleri- 
cal oversight, it should be noticed that, in the 
description of the parcels, the word 'late,' before 
the poet's name, is interpolated." 

But in a later conveyance of the same premises, 
dated Jan. 22, 1613, occurs the following :■ — 

" betweene the tenemente of Thomas Hornebye 
1 See p. 181. 



120 JOHN AND WILLIAM SHAKESPEAEE. 

on the easte parte and a tenemente late William 
Shakspere on the weaste parte." 

Now it is not likely that a clerical error should 
be repeated at the distance of more than four 
years, not even if the clerk were actually copying 
the description of the parcels from the older con- 
veyance. What then does the word " late " mean ? 
Shakespeare was not dead ; he had not sold the 
Henley-Street house. It must mean that, until he 
went to New Place, he and his family had lived 
there when in Stratford. It is possible he had 
leased it of his father; but if John Shakespeare 
had lived in it at the time of his death in 1601, 
it would have been much more natural for the 
clerk to write, 

*' late of ^ John Shakspere." * 

Shakespeare's connection with the Theatres 
hriefly stated. 

He went to London in 1582. 

Eemained certainly till 1587. 

Is not heard of again till 1592. 

Next to Burbage, he was the largest proprietor 
of Blackfriars' in 1605. 

A proprietor of the Globe, — constructed in 
1600, — but not probably at the time of his 
death. 



APPENDIX. 



IN THE "CENTUEIE OF PEAYSE," 

DR. INGLEBY FINDS 

One hundred and eighty -five references to Shakespeare between 
1592 and 1693. Of these fifty -seven were made during his 
lifetime. Many of these were the words of the most eminent 
of his contemporaries or their immediate successors, such as 
Spenser and Jonson, Milton, Dryden, and Cowley. Others 
were made in manuscript and by obscure persons. 



THE '' CENTUEIE OF PRAYSE," BY DR. C. M. 
IN^GLEBY. LONDON, 1874. 

He quotes eight different opinions by Ben Jonson. 

Bohert Burton, 1624, says : " Yenus ran out to 
meet lier rose- cheeked Adonis, as an elegant Poet 
of ours has set her out." 

Bicharcl James, in 1625, tells us of the offence 
given by Shakespeare's use of the name of Sir John 
Oldcastle and his substitution of that of Ealstaff. 

Thomas Bohinson, in 1630, describing the life 
of a monk, says : " After supper it is usual for him 
to read a little of ' Yenus and Adonis ' or some 
such scurrilous book." 

John Taylor, in 1630, mentions Shakespeare as 
the peer of Spenser : " Spenser and Shakespeare 
did in Art excel." 

Bohert Southwell, 1594 : — 

" Still finest wits are stilling Yenus' Rose ; 
In paynim toyes the sweetest veins are spent." 

Bohert Tofte, in 1598, praises and criticises 
" Love's Labour 's Lost." 



126 THE "CENTURIE OF PKAYSE." 

BicJiard Barnefield, 1598, writes: — 

" And Shakspere, thou whose honey-flowing vaine 
Pleasing the world thy praises doth obtaine." 

Walter Cope, in 1594, writes to Lord Cranbourne 
that " ' Love's Labour Lost ' is to be played at the 
Earl of Southampton's, which for wit and humor 
will please the Queen exceedingly." 

Jolm 3faTston, in the "Scourge of Yillainie," 
1599, writes of Shakespeare : — 

" He writes, he rails, he jests, he courts (what not X) 
And all from out his huge long scraped stocke 
Of well penned playes." 

George Peele, in 1607, in "Merrie Conceited 
Jests" mentions "Venus and Adonis." 

Louis Machin, 1608, the same. 

Thomas Hey wood, 1607, praises "Venus and 
Adonis." 

In a Preface to " Troilus and Cressida," printed 
in 1609, it is said: "So much and such savored 
salt of wit is in his Commedies, that they seeme 
to be born in that sea which brought forth 
Venus." 

A Manuscript Journal of the Duke of Wurtem- 
herg says, April 30, 1610 : " They play the 'Moor 
of Venice ' at the Globe." 



THE " CENTURIE OF PEAYSE." 127 

Sir William Drummond says : " Ben Jonson, in 
1618, said: 'William Shakspere wanted art and 
sometimes sense, since his men suffered shipwreck 
in Bohemia a hundred miles from any sea/ " 

William Basse, in a manuscript of 1622, writes : 

" Sleep, brave Tragedian, Shakspere, sleep alone, 
In this iincarved marble of thine own. 
Thy unmolested rest and unshared cave 
Possesse as lord not tenant to thy grave,i 
That unto others, it may counted be 
Honor hereafter to be laid by thee." 

Prefixed to the Second Folio of 1632 is this 
line : — 

" Rare Shakspere to the life thou dost behold." 

/. M. S. prefixed to Second Folio, 1632, these 
lines : — 

" Shakspere shall breathe and speak with. 
Laurel crowned which never fades." 

William Payne, writing in 1642, says: "Shake- 
spere's plays are better printed than most Bibles." 

Aston CoJcaine, in 1632, mentions Shakespeare 
as the peer of Jonson and Beaumont and Fletcher. 

Shakespeare is quoted by William Eowley in 
1632. 

1 An allusion evidently to the practice, heretofore alluded to, 
of renting graves. 



128 THE " CENTURIE OF PRAYSE." 

William Rahlington, in 1634, cries : " A health 
to Shakspere's ghost ! " 

Thomas Hey wood, in 1635, writes in the "Hie- 
rarchie of the Blessed Angels : " — 

" Mellifluous Shakspere, whose enchanting quill 
Commanded mirth or passion, was hut Will." 

Owen Feltham, in 1638, speaks of Shakespeare 
as the " chief gem in the crown of the stage." 

BicJiard West, in 1638, says: "Shakspere may 
make grief merrie." 

James Mervyn, in 1638, writes of Shakespeare's 
mirth. 

In a "Banquet of Jests," 1639, we read that 
"Stratford is remarkable for the birth of the 
famous William Shakspere." 

Thomas Bancroft, in 1639, says : — 

" Thou hast so used thy pen, or shook thy speare. 
That Poets startle nor thy wit come neare." 

In a funeral song on Lady Helen Branch by Sir 
William Harhert, 1594, Shakespeare is rebuked 
for going into foreign countries for the subjects of 
his verse. 

An edition of his Poems, 1640, has appended 
to it : — 

" Sleep then, rich soul of numbers, whilst poor we 
Enjoy the profits of thy legacy." 



THE "CENTUEIE OF PEAYSE." 129 

In 1636 Sir John Suckling wrote a " Supplement 
to some of Shakspere's verses ; " also the lines : — 

" The sweat of Johnson's learned brain, 
And gentle Shakspere's easier strain." 

James Shirley, in 1642, writes : — 

" To Shakspere comes whose mirth did once heguUe 
Dull hours ; and buskined made even sorrow smile." 

And again, in 1647, writing to Pembroke and 
Montgomery, Shirley calls them "patrons to 
the flowing compositions of the sweet swan of 
Avon." 

In "Mercurius Brittanicus," some one writes, 
1644, of " Ben Jonson and his uncle Shakspere " ! 

Sir John Denham writes to John Fletcher in 

1647: — 

" When Jonson, Shakspere, and thyself did sit 
And swayed in the triumvirate of wit." 

Sir George Buche, in 1647, writes : — 

" Let Shakspere, Chapman, and applauded Ben 
Weare the eternal merit of their pen." 

J. Birkenhead, in a eulogy prefixed to the first 
edition of Beaumont and Fletcher, writes, 1647 : 

" Brave Shakspere flowed, yet had his ebbings too, 
Often above himself, sometimes below, 
Thou always best." 

9 



130 THE " CENTUEIE OF PEAYSE." 

In 1645 Milton, whose first published verses 
had been the Epitaph to the First Folio, mentions 
Shakespeare in " L* Allegro " as 

" Sweetest Shakspere, Fancy's child ; " 

and again mentions him in prose in 1649. 

Samuel Sheppardj in 1646, writes of Shake- 
speare : — 

" Who wrote his lines with a sunbeam, 
More durable than time or fate." 

William Bell, 1651, writes of Shakespeare's 
" alchemy." 

Jasper Mayne, 1651, writing, I believe, of Beau- 
mont and Fletcher, says: — 

" In thee Ben Jonson still held Shakspere's qniU." 

Sir William Dugdale, in 1653, mentions Shake- 
speare's monument made by Gerard Johnson. 

Samuel Holland, in 1656, criticised his "Wit 
and Fancy in a Maze." 

John Evelyn writes to Pepys, in 1689, describing 
a picture of Shakespeare at Lord Clarendon's in one 
piece with Chaucer and Beaumont and Fletcher. 

In 1664 Mary Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, 
writes : " Shakspere had a clear judgment, a quick 
wit, a spreading fancy, a subtle observation, and 
a deep apprehension." 



THE "CENTURIE OF PKAYSE." 131 

Dry den says, in 1668 : "To begin with Shak- 
spere, he who of all the moderns had the largest 
and most comprehensive soul." 

In the Prologue to "Julius Ca3sar/' printed 
1672, we hear that 

" In imitation Jonson's wit was shown, 
Heaven made his men, Shakspere made Ms own ! " 

Dryden makes several mentions of him between 
1672 and 1690, as follows : " Shakspere, who many 
times has written better than any Poet in any 
language." "In my style I propose to imitate 
the Divine Shakspere." " To return once more to 
Shakspere, no man ever drew so many characters." 

In the Preface to " Troilus and Cressida," 1679, 
we have : — 

" See, my loved Britons, see your Shakspere rise, 
An awful ghost confessed to human eyes." 

Ahraham Cowley, in his " Counterfeit Pieces," in 
1680, says : — 

" Our Shakspere wrote too in an age as blest, 
The happiest Poet of his time and best." 

George Scudery says, in 1681: "!N"one ever 
exceeded him." 

In 1682 John Banks, in the dedication of " Anna 
Bullen," wrote : " I say not this to derogate from 



132 THE "CENTURIE OF PRAYSE." 

those excellent persons, but to persuade them as 
Homer and our Shakspere did to immortalise the 
places where they were born." 

Knightly Chetwood, in 1684, wrote : "Shakspere 
said all that Nature could impart." 

In the manuscript biographical notices of Ful- 
man and Davies, in 1690, remarks concerning 
Shakespeare appear. 

Before the close of the seventeenth century, 
Dr. Ingleby finds thirteen additional allusions to 
the Plays. I have used some of his references 
in the biographical sketch in this volume to illus- 
trate special points. 

From a manuscript book belonging to Sir Alex- 
ander Bowell at the time of the Eestoration, Dr. 
Ingleby quotes " Shakspere upon the King " as 
follows : — 

" Crownes have their compass, length of days their date, 
Triumphs their tombs, felicity her fate, 
Of more than Earth, cami Earthe make none partaker, 
But knowledge makes the King most like his Maker," — 

words that are worth preserving on the mere 
chance of their being his. 

Mr. Halliwell-Phillips thinks Dr. Ingleby ought 
to add to the " Centurie of Prayse " the following 
verses, written by Samuel Sheppard, about the 



THE "CENTURIE OF PKAYSE." 133 

year 1635, only nineteen years after the poet's 
death : — 

" Shakspere the nexfe, who wrote so much, so well, 
That, when I view his bulke, I stand amazed ; 
A genius so inexhaustible 

That hath such tall and numerous trophies raised. 
Let him bee thought a block, an infidell, 
Shall dare to skreene the lustre of his praise ; 
Whose works shall find their due, a deathlesse date, 
Scoming the teeth of time or force of Fate I " 



DIRECT ASCRIPTION OF AUTHORSHIP 
TO SHAKESPEARE. 

FROM VARIOUS SOURCES. 



DIEECT ASCEIPTION OF AUTHOESHIP TO 
SHAKESPEAEE. 

" The Witt's Eecreation," published in 1640, says: 
" Let thine own histories prove thy Chronicle." 

Bichard Browne had said the same in 1638. 

John Benson, in 1640, publishes Shakespeare's 
"Excellent and Sweetly Oomposed Poems." 

John Warreii does the same in the same year. 

In 1598 Gabriel Harvey wTites: "The younger 
sort take much delight in Shakspere's ' Venus and 
Adonis;' but his 'Lucrece,' and 'Hamlet, Prince 
of Denmark ' have it in them to please the wiser 
sort." 

Spenser, author of " The Faerie Queene/' writes 

in 1594: — 

"Wh-ose muse, full of high thought's invention, 
Doth like himself heroically sound." 

Thomas Prujean, in 1644, names Shakespeare's 
Plays by title. 

James Howell, in 1647, criticises Shakespeare in 
his plays as having "grown madde to make the 
muse welter in blood." 



138 DIEECT ASCEIPTION OF 

Twenty-one notices of the performance of Shake- 
speare's Plays are given by Samuel Pe]pys in the 
years 1659 and 1660. 

In a Prologue to Davenanfs " Enchanted Island," 
in 1669, it is said : — 

" So from, old Shakspere's honored dust this day, 
Springs up and buds a new reviving play. 
But Shakspere's magic could not copied be ; 
Within that circle none doth walk but he." 



In 1669 Edward Phillips calls "Shakspere first 
of dramatic writers." 

In 1677 Sir Carr Scrope says: "N'ever any rep- 
resented nature more to the life ; his birth is the 
greatest honor Stratford can boast." 

In the Dedicatory Epistle of Thomas Shadwell 
to an edition of 1678, he says : " I am now to pre- 
sent your Grace with the ' History of Timon ; * 
and it is the more worthy of you, since it has the 
inimitable hand of Shakspere in it." 

Tliomas Rymer, in 1678, and Martyn Herring- 
man and Mariot propose to reprint the Plays in 
1679. 

In 1680 Sir William Temple speaks of Shake- 
speare " as the first to open the comic vein." 

Sir George Baynsford^ in 1682, says in a Pro- 
logue: — 



AUTHORSHIP TO SHAKESPEARE. 139 

"Yet we presume we may be safe to-day, 
Since Shakspere gave foundation to the play." 

John Sheffield, Earl Mulgrave, wrote in 1682 : — 

" Shakspere and Fletcher are the wonders now. 
Consider them and read them o'er and o'er. 
Go see them played ; then read them as before." 

J. Crown, in Prologue to " King Henry VI.," 
1681, writes : — 

** To-day we bring old gathered Herbs, *t is true, 
But such as in sweet Shakspere's Garden grew, 
And all his plants immortal you esteem." 

In 1689 Nahum, Tate, in the Dedication to 
" King Lear," says : — 

" He hopes since in rich Shakspere's soil it grew 
'T will relish yet with those whose tastes are true." 

A copy of " King Lear " published in 1605, has 
written upon it, 

" First written by Mr. William Shakspere." 

There are seventeen contemporary notices which 
include his name in print. 

Francis Meres, in 1598, quoted at length else- 
where, calls him " excellent for the stage in both 
tragedy and comedy." 

"Friendly Shakspere's tragedies" are spoken 
of in " Diaphantes," 1604. 



140 DIRECT ASCRIPTION OF 

John Barnes addresses him tlius in his " Scourge 
ofFollie/'ieiO: — 

" To our Englisli Terence, Mr. Will Shakspere : 

" Some say, good Will, whicli I in sport do sing, 
Hadst thou not played some kingly parts in sport, 
Thou hadst been a companion for a king 
And been a king among the meaner sort. 
Some others raile ; but raile as they think fit 
Thou hast no railing but a raigning wit ; 
And honesty thou sowest which they do reape 
So to increase the stocke which they do keep." 

The conclusion of the dedication of Webster's 
"White Devil," 1612, speaks of "the right happy 
and copious industry of Shakspere " in the same 
line as that of Beaumont and Fletcher. 

In the Second Folio, 1632, Hugh Holland says : 

" His dayes are done that made the dainty playes 
Which crowned him Poet first, then Poets' king." 

In 1614 Thomas Freeman wrote : — 

" Besides in plaies thy wit flows like Meander." 

That nineteen spurious plays were attributed to 
Shakespeare is a very significant fact. It shows 
us unequivocally the value of his supposed author- 
ship to the publisher, and implies an immense 
popularity. Of what other author was the same 
thing true ? 



AUTHOKSHIP -TO SHAKESPEAEE. 141 

It is also certain that Shakespeare frequently 
altered old plays for the use of the theatres with 
which he was connected. In many instances the 
traces of his hand are clear. Can any one imagine 
that Lord Bacon ever had the power or the good 
will to undertake such a task ? 



HALLIWELL-PHILLIPS. 



HALLIWELL-PHILLIPS . 

Mr. J. 0. Halliwell-Phillips, to whose la- 
bours all English -speaking people are so greatly 
indebted, is a gentleman of wealth residing at 
HoUingbnry Copse, Brighton, England. His " Out- 
lines of the Life of Shakspere" is only one of 
his many contributions to Shakespearian study. It 
has passed through five editions, in an enormous 
double octavo, between 1872 and 1885. I have 
been able to obtain only the first, third, and fifth 
editions ; and so clumsily are these valuable books 
made up, that the comparison of the different 
editions is made with great difficulty. There is 
what seems like a capricious change of arrange- 
ment as the different editions succeed each other. 
There is no complete index to either, no table of 
contents, no list of illustrations. In the fifth 
edition, ten plans and prints have no label what- 
ever, nor is there any way in which a novice 
could discover their relation to the text. The 
best way to alter a book like this would be to 
retain the original form and add the necessary 

10 



146 HALLIWELL-PHILLIPS. 

annotations. New documents should be printed 
as supplements ; but, above all, each new edition 
should be furnished with a preface, showing what 
is omitted, what is added, and what new points 
are made. In the third edition of the " Out- 
lines," about three hundred illustrative notes 
are added, which refer to the main text by page 
and line. The text itself does not refer to the 
notes. 

In the fifth edition all this is changed. The 
notes are numbered, the references to page and 
line are dropped. Numbers on the margin of the 
text refer to the notes; but there is no way of 
referring back to the text from the notes, unless 
one makes the references for himself with pen and 
ink, as I have done. 

Greater inconvenience could hardly be. It 
seems ungracious to find fault with what is so 
generously given ; but I should be sorry to see 
some literary hack reconstruct this noble work ; 
and I have been indebted to Mr. Halliwell- 
Phillips for so much, that I would willingly make 
it more. 

In the first edition of his " Outlines of the Life 
of Shakspere," Mr. Halliwell-Phillips does not 
seem to have classified his various documents as 
carefully as in later editions. 



HALLIWELL-PHILLIPS. 147 

In the third edition, published in 1883, we find : 

Contemporary Notices 18 

Theatrical Evidences 20 

Eegisters of Copyright 34 

Lifetime Editions . . . . . . . . 71 

In aU 143 

mentions of the poet. 

Also, Domestic Records 14 

Biographical Notices 6 

Eecords of Eeal Estate 38 

In all 58 

In judging of the position of Shakespeare before 
the public of his own century, by the number of 
published notes of himself or his performances, we 
must not forget that in his time tliere were no 
newspapers and no magazines. The first news- 
paper was published in England in 1622, — six 
years after the poet's death, — and no such thing 
as a magazine or periodical existed until long after. 
It is doubtful whether any well-known modern 
author could show a better record when this 
exception is made. 



148 CONTEMPOKARY EVIDENCES. 

CONTEMPORARY EVIDEI^CES. 
{^Abstracts from HaUiwell-Phillips.'] 

Feom Payne Collie?' : — 

When the Corporation of London threatened to 
interfere with the players at Blackfriars', the Earl 
of Southampton addressed a letter to the Lord 
Chancellor Ellsmere, introducing Shakespeare and 
Burbage. After commenting on the talent and 
industry of Burbage, Southampton speaks of Shake- 
speare as no less deserving favour, and his " owns 
especial friende," the writer of some of the best 
English plays, and a favourite of both Elizabeth 
and James. 

" This other hath to name William Shakspere," 
he says ; " and they are both of one countie, and, 
indeed, almost of one town. Both are right fa- 
mous in their qualities, though it belongeth not 
to your Lordship's gravity and wisdom to resort 
unto the places where they are wont to delight 
the public ear. Their trust and suit now is, not 
to be molested in their way of life, whereby they 
maintain themselves and their wives and families, 
— being both married and of good reputation, — 
as well as the widows and orphans of some of 
their dead fellowes." 



CONTEMPORARY EVIDENCES. 149 

This letter may be quoted to show that Shake- 
speare was known in 1613 as the reputable head 
of a family, and better as an author than an actor, 
and claimed as a friend by a pure and excellent 
man. Why not call it a biographical notice ? 

From "Poems in Divers Humors," printed in 
1598, and again in 1605, Mr. Halliwell-Phillips 
quotes mention of Spenser, Drayton, and Daniel, 

" And Shakspere, thou whose honey-flowing vaine, 
Pleasing the world thy praises doth obtain e, 
Live ever you, at least in fame, live ever ! " 

In " A Comparative Discourse on English Poets," 
by FroMcis Meres, published 1598, we have : — 

"As the Greek tongue is made famous by 
Euripides, Aristophanes, et al.^ so is the English 
by Spenser, Shakspere, and Marlowe. The sweet 
soul of Ovid lives in the mellifluous and honie- 
tongued Shakspere. As Plautus and Seneca are 
accounted best in tragedy and comedy among the 
Latins, so is Shakspere among the English, — 
most excellent in both kinds for the stage. If the 
Muses would speak English, they would speak 
with Shakspere's fine filM phrase." 

In "An Epigram on Shakspere," printed by 
John Weemer in 1599, he says : — 

" Honie-tongued Shakspere, when I saw thine issue, 
I swore Apollo got them, and no other." 



150 CONTEMPORAEY EVIDENCES. 

In the " Garden of the Muses," printed in 1600, 
Shakespeare is quoted as the peer of Daniel, 
Spenser, Ben Jonson, and Marlowe. This was in 
his lifetime. 

In " Diaphantes," published in 1604, poets are 
adjured to appeal to common sympathies, — 

" To come lionie to the vulgar element. 
Like friendly Shakspere's tragedies.'' 

In this respect, Shakespeare was a great contrast 
to Bacon, who hired Ben Jonson to translate his 
works into Latin, because he considered that the 
language of scholars, and did not believe in the 
immortality of the English tongue. 

In Camden's " Eemains," printed in 1604, Shake- 
speare is mentioned as " one of the most pregnant 
wits of our time." 

In the "Eeturn from Parnassus," 1606, we are 
told,— 

" His sweeter verse contains hart-robbing life." 

In " Polimantheia," or "Means Lawful or Un- 
lawful to Judge of a Commonwealth," printed at 
Cambridge in 1595, there are two marginal refer- 
ences to Shakespeare, as if to support positions 
taken. 

In " A Comparative Discourse on English Poets," 



CONTEMPOEARY EVIDENCES. 151 

printed by Francis Meres in 1598, Shakespeare is 
used as an illustration four times. 

Ben Jonson writes at length of him in his 
"Discoveries" in 1641, but I have used the quota- 
tion elsewhere. 

John Davis mentions him as follows in the 
"Scourge of Follie," printed in 1610: — 

" To our English Terence, Will Shakspere." 

In the "Excellence of the English Tongue," 
printed in 1614, Richard Carew says : "Will you 
read Virgil ? Take the Earle of Surrey. Catullus ? 
Shakspere and Barlowe's Fragment." 

In an Epigram by Thomas Freeman, 1614, he 
^says: — 

*' But to praise thee right, I want thy store, 
Then let thine own workes thine own worth appraise, 
And help adorn thee with deserved bayes." 

In the " General Chronicle of England," 1614, 
Shakespeare is named as the equal of Drayton, 
Marlowe, Ben Jonson, and others, "worthily 
flourishing by his own worke." 



152 THEATRICAL EVIDENCES. 



TWENTY THEATRICAL EVIDENCES 

are cited by Halliwell-Phillips. Among them 
is found a Poem by Leonard JDigges^ prefixed to 
Tliomas Cotes's edition of the Poems of William 
Shakspere, Gent., London, 1640, from which I 
take the following : — 

" Poets are born, not made ; when T would prove 
The truth, the glad remembrance I must love 
Of never-dying Shakspere, who alone 
Is argument enough to make that one. 
First, that he was a Poet none would doubt 
That heard the applause of what he sees set out, 
Imprinted ; — when thou hast, I will not say 
Header, his Worhes, for to contrive a play 
To him, 't was none, the pattern of all wit. 
Art without art unparalleled as yet. 
Next, Nature only helpt him, for look thorow 
This whole booke, thou shalt find he doth not borrow 
One phrase from Greeks, nor Latines imitate, 
Nor once from vulgar languages translate, 
Nor, plagiar-like, from others gleane, 
Nor begs he from each witty friend a scene 
To piece his Acts with ; all that he doth write 
Is pure his owne, — Plot, language exquisite. 
But oh ! what praise more powerful can we give 
The dead, than that by him the king's men live % 

Like old coined gold, his lines in every page 
Shall pass true current to succeeding age. 
But why do I dead Shakspere's praise recite ? 
Some second Shakspere must of Shakspere write." 



THEATRICAL EVIDENCES. 153 

This is valuable, not as fine poetry, but as a con- 
temporaneous testimony to Shakespeare's ability. 
There is no question that the author recognizes 
the poetical gift, the power of rapid writing and 
of dramatic characterization, as well-known gifts 
of Shakespeare, which no one then living would 
dispute. 

There are thirty-three copyright entries of Shake- 
speare's Plays between 1593 and 1623 ; that is 
more than one every year. 

There are seventy-one editions of plays or poems, 
to which his name was attached, printed in his 
lifetime. 

Upon the titlepage of sixteen of these are the 
words " newly corrected " or " augmented by William 
Shakspere." 

Erom the pages of the First Folio, printed in 
1623, we can extract varied testimonials. 

Heminges and Condell, friends of Shakespeare, 
to whom he had left money in his will to buy 
funeral rings, dedicated it to his friends Pembroke 
and Montgomery. It is printed, they say, " to 
keep the memory of so worthy a friend and 
fellow." 

They go on to say : " We most humbly conse- 
crate to your Highnesses these remaines of your 
servant Shakspere, that the delight in them may 



154 THEATRICAL EVIDENCES. 

be ever your Lordships', the reputation his, and 
the faults, if any, ours." 

After expressing their regret that he did not 
live to print his own works, they go on : — 

" Who, as he was a Happie imitator of iNTature, 
was a most gentle expresser of it. His mind and 
hand went together ; and what he thought he 
uttered with that easiness that we have scarce 
received from him a blot in his papers." 

On the same pages we find this noble tribute 
from Ben Jonson : — 

" My Shakspere, rise, I will not lodge thee by 
Chaucer or Spenser, or bid Beaumont He 
A httle further, to make thee a roome. 
Thou art a moniment without a tombe, 
And art alive still, while thy booke doth live, 
And we have wits to read and praise to give. . . . 
Triumph, my Britain, thou hast one to show, 
To whom all scenes of Europe homage owe ; 
He was not for an age, but for all time. . . . 
Nature herself was proud of his designs, 
And joyed to wear the dressing of his lines ; 
Yet must I not give Nature all. Thy art, 
My gentle Shakspere, must enjoy a part, 
For though the Poet's matter Nature be, 
His art doth give the fashion. . . . 

Look how the father's face 
Lives in his issue." 

In these last words Jonson tells us what I think 
we all feel, that Shakespeare's character is shown 



THEATRICAL EVIDENCES. 155 

in tlie lofty tendencies of his verse. If a man who 
knew Shakespeare intimately could write these 
lines concerning him when he was really, as we 
have heard him called, a low-born drunkard, abso- 
lutely incapable of the great works which go by 
his name, then we must make an end of all faith 
in man's written word. 

Further on Leonard Digges says : — 

" This booke 

When brasse and marble fade, shall make thee looke 

Fresh to all ages." 

J. M. says, in allusion to the habits of the stage : 

" We thought thee dead, but this, thy printed worth 
Tells thy Spectators that thou wentst but forth 
To enter with applause." 

To all this we may add, in conclusion, John Mil- 
ton's beautiful lines, the first verses ever printed by 
him. He was twenty-four years old when the 
Second Folio was printed. He was only seven 
when Shakespeare died ; but testimony coming so 
close, from so great a man distinguished for the 
austerity of his own life, is quite as good as if it 
were contemporaneous : — 

'•What needs my Shakspere for his honored bones 
The labor of an age in piled stones ? 
Or that his hallowed relics should be hid. 
Under a star-y-pointing pyramid ? 



156 THEATRICAL EVIDENCES. 

Dear son of memory, great heir of fame, 

What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name ? 

Thou in our wonder and astonishment 

Hast built thyself a live-long monument. 

For, whilst to the shame of slow endeavoring art, 

Thy easy numbers flow, and that each heart 

Hath from the leaves of thy unvalued book 

Those Delphic lines with deep impression took, 

Then, thou our Fancy of itself bereaving, 

Dost make us marble with too much conceiving 

And so, sepulchred in such pomp dost lie, 

That kings for such a tomb would wish to die." 

It remains only to quote the verses of an un- 
known author upon the Stratford monument, and 
two lines from the stone which covers the grave 
of Shakespeare's oldest daughter, Susannah Hall. 
On Shakespeare's monument are these words : — 

" Kead, if thou canst, whom envious Death hath placed 
Within this monument : Shakespeare, with whom 
Quick nature died, whose name doth deck this Tombe 
Far more than cost ; sith all that he hath writ 
Leaves living Art but page to serve his wit." 

Of Susannah it is said : — 

" Witty above her sex, but that 's not all, 
Wise to salvation was good mistress Hall. 
Something of Shakspere was in that." 

In 1600 a play called " The First Part of the 
Life of Sir John Oldcastle," with wdiich Shake- 
speare had nothing to do, and which did not even 



THEATEICAL EVIDENCES. 167 

belong to Ms own theatre, was published under 
his name, by one Thomas Pavior. 

In 1608 Thomas Pavior again published a play 
with Shakespeare's name attached to it. It was 
called "The Yorkshire Tragedy," and as Shake- 
speare was then travelling on the southern coast, 
he may never have heard of it. 

The use of Shakespeare's name to give currency 
to poor plays, shows that he was a well-known 
author, from whom good work was expected. On 
one or two occasions he interfered to prevent an 
unfair use of his name or his initials ; and that he 
did not do it always, was probably due to his very 
busy life, his frequent absences on professional 
tours, or his sequestration at Stratford. There is 
no stronger testimony to the position he held in the 
public regard than the constant effort of publishers 
so long as he lived to attribute to him plays with 
which he had nothing to do. When the Pirst 
Polio was printed, one half of its contents were 
new to the reading public, and it was evident 
that Shakespeare's friends knew what he had 
written and did not proceed on guess-work. They 
printed " Titus Andronicus " and the Third Part 
of "King Henry VL," which no lover of Shake- 
speare would have been sorry to relinquish ; but 
they omitted "The London Prodigal" and "The 



158 THEATRICAL EVIDENCES. 

Yorkshire Tragedy," which had been publicly- 
ascribed to him. 

Among the arguments used to fasten the author- 
ship of Shakespeare's Plays upon Bacon is the use 
by the poet of localities which must have been 
familiar to Bacon by his descent or residence. 

In the "Taming of the Shrew/' played and 
printed before 1594, the Induction brings us into 
a hamlet of Stratford, and portrays by the names 
of Sly, ISTaps, Turf, and Pimpernell, persons well 
known and living there in Shakespeare's day. 
Wincot was a hamlet where Shakespeare had 
property and which he frequented ; Sly was a ser- 
vant of William Combe, of whom Shakespeare once 
bought a hundred acres of land. There is a tra- 
dition that Shakespeare frequented the ale-houses 
of that hamlet to make himself familiar with the 
ways of a fool there. 

Now for many historical or national reasons, it 
was quite possible for Shakespeare to be well in- 
formed in regard to places and persons associated 
with Bacon. Every London man heard legends 
connected with Chiselhurst or St. Albans, while it 
was not in the least likely that Bacon ever heard 
of Wincot fools, or had sufficient sympathy with 
the comic side of humble life to make acquaintance 
with the servants of William Combe. 



THEATRICAL EVIDENCES. 159 

Mr. Halliwell-Phillips gives us many small 
points tending to identify the writer of the Plays 
with a resident of Stratford and its neighbourhood. 
One of these is the use of the phrase " Aroint thee," 
to be found only in the Plays of Shakespeare and 
the legal records of Stratford. When Ulysses tells 
his " love-embarrassed colleague " that, 

" The fool slides o'er the ice that you should break ; " 

he expresses a daily human experience in so un- 
common a way, that we know some actual oc- 
currence must have suggested the form. Mr. 
Halliwell-Phillips discovers this in a local adven- 
ture of a certain Jack Miller, a petted innocent of 
Esom, who crossed the Avon in infatuated pursuit 
of a professional buffoon, where the ice was so 
weak that it sank at every step, and went to pieces 
under a brickbat thrown by a spectator who was 
afterwards one of Shakespeare's theatrical col- 
leagues. The story was in print in 1600. 



160 NOTE. 



NOTE. 



In March, 1599, Essex went to Ireland, and 
Southampton was his General of Horse. In May 
or June, Shakespeare, the "especial friend" of 
Southampton, inserted a graceful compliment to 
him in his Play of " King Henry V.," which indi- 
cates his sympathy with the love and expectation 
of the people. 

On Feb. 2, 1603, Shakespeare was summoned to 
Whitehall to act before Elizabeth for the last time. 
On the 24:th of March the Queen died. In spite 
of many marks of her favour he wrote no verse of 
eulogy or lamentation. His silence was remarked, 
for more than one of the smaller poets called upon 
him by name to bewail the dead Queen. He never 
forgave the Queen who put Essex to death, and we 
may judge therefore that he was as little likely to 
serve the purposes of Bacon, who betrayed him, and 
needlessly prosecuted the charges of the Govern- 
ment against him. 

"A Mournful Dittie " entitled "Elisabeth's 
Losse " has the following verse : — 

" You poets all, brave Shakspere, Johnson, Greene, 
Bestow your time to write for England's Queene ; 
Ee-turn your Songs, your Sonnets, and your Layes 
To set forth sweet Elisabeth (a's) praise." 



NOTE. 161 

The author of "Epigrams/' published in 1604, 
ill speaking of the death of Elizabeth, says some 
dare to praise her, — 

" Some other humbly craves 
For help of spirits in their sleeping graves, 
As he that called to Shakspere, Jonson, Greene, 
To write of their dead noble Queene." 

In 1603 Henry Chettle wrote : — 

" Nor doth the silver tongued Melicent 
Drop from his honied muse one sable teare 
To mourn her death that graced his desert, 
And to his layes opened her royal eare ; 
Shepherd, remember our Elisabeth, 
And sing her Rape done by that Tarquin Death." 

Another verse of the " Mournful Dittie " says : 

" You Poets all, brave Shakspere, Johnson, Greene, 
Bestow your time to write for England's Queen ; 
Lament, lament, lament, you English peers, 
Lament your losse, possessed so many years." 

Many things united to destroy the respect of 
such a man as Shakespeare for the Queen. South- 
ampton had married without her consent, and 
she never forgave him, and summarily dismissed 
him from the post to which Essex had appointed 
him. " As You Like It " was performed by Shake- 
speare's company during Essex's imprisonment, and 
any attentive reader of it will think that it might 

11 



162 NOTE. 

have been written for the especial comfort of 
Southampton in 1601. The compliment to Eliza- 
beth, so often quoted from " King Henry VIII.," 
was not personal to the author. It is put into 
the lips of Cranmer. If this be no explanation, 
we can say farther that between the death of 
Essex and the appearance of this Play in 1606, 
there was time for much softening of the resent- 
ment which his execution occasioned. 



DOMESTIC EECOEDS. 163 



DOMESTIC EECOEDS. 

1. The will of Eohert Arden, dated November, 
1556, which gives the poet's mother, Mary Arden, 
the farm of Asbyes in Wincote, the " crop in the 
ground," and some money before the estate was 
divided. It makes her and her sister Alis execu- 
tors, and leaves some money to the town. 

2. The inventory of Robert Arden's estate. This 
included certain articles of luxury, such as tapes- 
tries or "peynted clothes." It is not a complete 
inventory of household effects. His bedsteads and 
some other things seem to have belonged to his 
second wife, Agnes. 

3. The will of Agnes Arden, Shakespeare's step- 
grandame on his mother's side. 

4. The inventory of Agnes Arden's estate, which 
contains tapestries and the missing bedsteads. 

5. The will of a certain Richard Hathaway of 
Shottery, made in 1581. It mentions children, — 
Thomas, John, William, Agnes, Catharine, and 
Margarett, but not Anne. This man is the Hatha- 
way usually supposed to be the father of Shake- 
speare's wife, but this is impossible. He was dead 
in July, 1562, and Shakespeare did not marry 
Anne until the following November. The seal of 



164 DOMESTIC RECORDS. 

Eichard Hathaway said to be attached to Shake- 
speare's marriage license must have belonged to 
some other person, of whom Anne may have been 
dauo'hter or ward. 

o 

6. Bond against impediments. Given in antici- 
pation of the marriage of Shakespeare and Anne 
Hathaway, Nov. 28, 1582. This made any other 
marriage illegal. This was discovered among the 
papers at the Consistorial Court of Worcester, a 
county which touched Warwickshire. Bonds were 
given by two persons said to be friends and neigh- 
bours of the Hathaways, to indemnify the Bishop 
of Worcester for licensing the marriage with only 
one publishment of the banns. This is sometimes, 
but I believe improperly, called Shakespeare's mar- 
riage license, and the seal of one Eichard Hatha- 
way is said to be attached to it. Whatever were 
the causes that prevented an earlier marriage be- 
tween William and Anne, it seems impossible that 
they should have been considered discreditable. 
Shakespeare's great success made him a fair tar- 
get for the shafts of envy. In London, in his 
dramatic career, he was associated with men who 
came from his own neighbourhood, who must have 
known every detail of his history, who never at- 
tained a celebrity to compare with that of the 
" Shake- Scene " whom thev scoffed at. If there 



DOMESTIC RECOEDS. 165 

had been any scandal connected with Shakespeare's 
marriage it would have been sure to come to 
publicity in his lifetime. 

7. A draft of a grant of coat armour, for which 
Shakespeare's father petitioned in 1569, and which .'^ X 
had been granted. This recounts the services of a 
grandfather rewarded by Henry VII. for services 

on the field, and rights obtained by marriage with 
Mary Arden. The arms applied for were certainly 
carried by Shakespeare and his descendants ; but 
the value of this paper consists in the fact that 
no man as obscure and poverty-stricken as John 
Shakespeare is frequently represented would have 
dared to make such an application. It would have 
been against all the proprieties of the period. 

8. A Utter from Ahraham Sturley to Eichard 
Quiney, Jan. 24, 1597-98, in which reference is 
made to an intended purchase by the poet at 
Shottery, and Quiney is advised to suggest to him 
an investment in Stratford tithes. 

This investment in tithes requires a certain 
amount of explanation ; all the more, that it seems 
to have added greatly to Shakespeare's wealth. 
Previous to the Eeformation and for some time 
after, the clergy, being frightened about the se- 
curity of their properties, took in many cases 
bonuses for long leases. In this way the Stratford 



166 DOMESTIC KECORDS. 

tithes had been leased out, and Shakespeare finally 
bought the remaining term of one half. 

9. A return of the quantity of corn and malt 
held in February, 1598, by the inhabitants of the 
quarter in which " New Place " was situated, 
" William Shakspere ten quarters." This was, 
with one exception, the largest quantity credited 
to any one man in the town. 

10. A letter from Adrian Quiney to his son 
Eichard (1599 ?). He " may bargain with William 
Shakspere," probably about the town tithes. 

11. A letter from Abraham Sturley to Eichard 
Quiney, Nov. 4, 1598, speaks of Shakespeare as 
likely to procure money for the Corporation, and 
to receive a lease of the tithes if he chooses and 
can raise thirty or forty pounds. 

12. A draft of a grant of coat armour proposed 
to be conferred on John Shakespeare, 1599. Origi- 
nal from the coUege-at-arms. Duplicate of paper 
of 1596. 

13. A declaration filed by William Shahsyere 
in the Court of Eecord of Stratford on Avon, in 
the year 1604, to recover the value of malt sold to 
one Philip Rogers. 

14. Precepts in an action for debt brought by 
Shakespeare against John Addenbrohe, in the Strat- 
ford-upon-Avon Court of Eecord, 1609. 



BIOGEAPHICAL NOTICES. 167 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 

1. From Ben Jonson's "Timber," or "Dis- 
coveries made upon Men and Matter as they have 
flowed out of his Daily Eeading/' etc., foL, London, 
1641: — 

" I remember the players have often mentioned 
it as an honor to Shakspere, that in his writing, 
whatsoever he penned, he never blotted a line. 
My answer hath beene : ' Would he had blotted 
a thousand ! ' which they thought a malevolent 
speech. I had not told posterity this, but for the 
ignorance of those who choose that circumstance 
to commend their friend by, wherein hee most 
faulted, and to justifie mine own Candour ; for I 
loved the man, and doe honour his memorie on 
this side idolatrie as much as any. 

" Hee was indeed honest, and of an open and 
free nature; had an excellent phantasie, brave 
notions, and gentle expressions, wherein hee flowed 
with that facilitie that sometime it was necessary 
hee should be stopped. His wit was in his own 
power ; would the rule of it had been so too. 

" Many times hee fell into those things could 
not escape laughter, as "when hee said of Cesar, 
one speaking to him : * Cesar, thou dost me 



168 BIOGRAPHICAL KOTICES. 

wrong ; * hee replied, ' Cesar did never wrong but 
with just cause/ and such like, which were ridicu- 
lous. But he redeemed his vices with his virtues. 
There was ever more in him to be praysed than to 
be pardoned." 

2. From Fuller's "Worthies," 1662 : — 
"Plautus was never any scholar, as doubtless 

our Shakspere, if alive, would confess himself." 

3. From the notes of Bev. John Ward, vicar of 
Stratford in 1662. He says : — 

" Shakspere was a natural wit, without any art 
at all. In his later years he lived at Stratford, 
and supplied the stage with two playes every year. 
He spent at the rate of a thousand pounds a year." 

4. From Aubrey's "Lives of Eminent Men/* 
1680: — 

" Shakspere was a handsome, well-shaped man, 
very good company, and of a very ready and pleas- 
ant wit. The humor of , the constable in the 

' Midsummer Night's Dream/ he happened to take 
at Grendon in Bucks, and there was living that 
constable in 1642, when I first came to Oxford. 

" Though Ben Jonson says of him that he had 
'little Latine and lesse Greeke/ he understood 
Latin pretty well, for he had been a schoolmaster 
in the country in his youth." 

There is no constable in the "Midsummer 



BIOGKAPHICAL NOTICES. 169 

Night^s Dream;" and Elbow, the constable in 
" Measure for Measure," is probably the character 
intended. It is strange that the very credible 
statement that Shakespeare was a schoolmaster 
in the country in his youth, made by Aubrey 
on the authority of a "Mr. Beeston," has at- 
tracted so little attention. It is to Aubrey that 
we owe the scandal in reference to Sir William 
Davenant, which has been abundantly disproved 
by Mr. Halliwell-Phillips. It spite of proof, the 
scandal is continually repeated. In his Plays 
Shakespeare several times shows a keen sense of 
the humorous side of a schoolmaster's position, 
and this alone should have drawn some attention 
to Mr. Beeston's assertion. 

5. From a manuscript account of places in War- 
wickshire, written in 1693, by a person named 
Dovjdall : — 

" He was the best of his family ; but the male 
line is extinguished. Not one, for feare of the 
curse above-said, dare touch his grave-stone, though 
his wife and daughters did earnestly desire to be 
laid in the same grave with him." 

Fuller says of him that "he was jocular, and 
inclining to festivity." 

Bowe writes in his "Account of the Life of 
Shakspere," 1709 : •— 



170 BIOGEAPHICAL NOTICES. 

"His family were of good figure and fashion 
then, and they are mentioned as gentlemen. His 
father, though he was a considerable dealer in 
wool, had so large a family that, though he was 
his eldest son, he could give him no better educa- 
tion than his own employment. The poet was a 
good-natured man of great sweetness in his man- 
ners, and a most agreeable companion." 

Dry den, 1672, preserves a remark of Shake- 
speare's to the effect that, in " Eomeo and Juliet," 
he was " obliged to kill Mercutio in the third act, 
lest he should have been killed by him " ! 

It is painful to be obliged to give up Spenser^s 
tribute to " pleasant Willy," in the " Tears of the 
Muses;" but Spenser died twenty years before 
Shakespeare, and it is now generally conceded 
that those lines refer to one Eichard Tarlton, a 
famous comedian of that time, who owed this 
sobriquet to some special part that he played. 
Tarlton died while Spenser was writing in 1588. 

Webster, in the dedication to the " White Devil," 
1612, speaks of " the right happy and copious in- 
dustry of Shakspere," just four years before his 
death. 

In spite of the Puritanical feeling in Stratford, 
which forbade theatrical performances by law in 
1612, and which in 1622 gave the "king's play- 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 171 

ers" "six shillings" for ''not performing in the 
town hall/' some friend had the courage to in- 
scribe on Shakespeare's monument, with the 
probable consent of the Halls, words which bear 
witness to the fact that his genius was abundantly 
recognized in his own time : — 

" Shakespeare, with whom 
Quick nature died, whose name does deck this Tomhe 
Far more than cost.'' 

Mary Harte, a descendant of Joan Shakespeare, 
who lived till 1750, stated that the organization 
of "Shakespeare's boys," who held horses at the 
theatres, grew out of the accident of the poet's 
performing this service for a gentleman on his 
first arrival. 



172 RECOEDS CONCERNING ESTATES. 



EECORDS CONCERNING ESTATES. 

1. A CONVEYANCE by Robert Arden, Shakespeare's 
maternal grandfather, of a house and land at Snit- 
terfield, in trust for his three daughters, July 17, 
1550. This farm was then occupied by Eichard 
Shakespeare, the poet's paternal grandfather. 

2. Concord of a Jine levied on the occasion of 
the purchase hy John Shakes-peare of two houses at 
Stratford on Avon, 1575. 

3. Note of a fine levied when the estate of Asbyes 
was mortgaged by the Shakespeares at the Easter 
term, 1578. 

4. Deed of conveyance on the 15th of October, 
1579, from Shakespeare's parents to Robert Webbe, 
of their interest in property at Snitterfield. This 
is one of the papers in which John Shakespeare is 
distinctly characterized as a yeoman. 

5. Bill of complaint brought by John Shake- 
speare, the poet's father, against Lambert in the 
Court of Queen's Bench, 1589, respecting an estate 
at Wilmecote, near Stratford. From the Coram 
Eege Eolls. TJiis document contains the only positive 
notice of the poet between the years 1585 and 1592. 

6. Deed of conveyance from John Shakespeare to 
George Badger, of a slip of land belonging to the 



RECORDS CONCERNING ESTATES. 173 

birthplace estate, 1596-97. In this instrument 
John Shakespeare is called yeoman. 

7. Papers in a Chancery suit respecting the es- 
tate of Ashyes, 1598. 

The father and mother of William Shakespeare 
were the plaintiffs, and Edmnnd Lambert, the 
poet's uncle by marriage, the defendant. 

The Shakespeares state that in consideration of 
a loan of £40 they mortgaged the estate to Lam- 
bert ; that when they went according to agreement 
and punctually to repay the money, Lambert re- 
fused to take it unless all moneys due on other 
accounts were also paid. The said Lambert died ; 
and his son entering into possession had divided 
and sold the property, so that they did not know 
against whom to bring suit. 

John Lambert replies substantially that the 
Shakespeares promised to lift the mortgage on the 
feast day of St. Michael, 1580, and to forfeit the es- 
tate if this were not done. He charges that this 
was not done, and that the motive of the suit was 
to take advantasje of the increased value of the 
farm, to obtain larger compensation for it. 

The Shakespeares respond again that their 
money, promptly tendered on St. Michael's feast 
day, 1580, was refused unless all other moneys 
due to Lambert were paid. 



174 EECOEDS CONCEKNING ESTATES. 

It does not appear tliat the Shakespeares were 
ever able to resume possession. 

8. Indenture of the conveyance of over a hundred 
acres of land from William and John Conribe to 
Shakespeare, May, 1602. 

9. Extract from the Court Bolls of the Manor of 
Bowington^ being the surrender from Walter Getly 
to William Shakespeare of premises in Chajpel Lane, 
Stratford on Avon, 1602. 

10. The conveyance to William Shakespeare of 
the moiety of a lease of the tithes in and near Strat- 
ford upon Avon, July 24, 1605. From the town 
records. 

11. A conveyance of Premises adjoining the 
birthplace in Henley Street, July 20, 1609. 

12. Note of a fine levied in Trinity term, 1610, 
on the estate purchased by Shakespeare from the 
Corribes. 

13. Draft of a hill of complaynt respecting the 
tithes, Shakespeare being one of the plaintiffs, 1612. 
This assumes that Shakespeare and others have 
been obliged to pay taxes unpaid by certain " men 
of ability," in order to save their own estates and 
protect those of poorer men, and demands redress. 

14. A conveyance of Premises adjoining the birth- 
place of the poet in Henley Street, in which Shake- 
speare is mentioned, Jan. 22, 1613. 



EECORDS CONCERNING ESTATES. 175 

15. The deed of Bargain and Sale of the Black- 
friars' estate to William Shakespeare and trustees, 
March 10, 1612-13. 

This indenture was one handed over to the poet 
after it had been enrolled by the vendor in the 
Court of Chancery. 

16. A duplicate of the preceding, — original in 
the Library of the City of London. This duplicate 
is signed by Shakespeare ; ITo. 15, by Henry 
Walker, vendor. Mr. Halliwell-Phillips expresses 
an odd sort of wonder that there should be two 
copies of this indenture ; but surely in any trans- 
action between two parties, each party is entitled 
to a copy of the paper which binds him, and in 
ordinary legal business to-day this right is claimed. 

17. Deed from Shakespeare and trustees to 
Henry Walker, mortgaging the Blackfriars^ estate 
to Walker, March 11, 1612. Signed. 

18. Articles of Agreement between William 
Shakespeare and William Replingham, by which 
Eeplingham agrees to compensate the poet, should 
loss accrue to him from enclosures contemplated 
by Eeplingham, 1614. 



NOTE. 



12 



NOTE. 

The confirmation of my theory that John Shake- 
speare retired from the town of Stratford soon 
after the mortgage of Asbyes in 1578, and occupied 
some other rural property in the hope of again 
possessing the Arden estate, can only be found 
in the history of the various farms inherited by 
the poet. No doubt Mr. Halliwell-Phillips has 
searched the Warwickshire records over and over 
again, but not with this end in view. He has 
always been looking for details relating to John 
Shakespeare's greater son. 

In Shakespeare's will and in three different 
legal instruments for the resettlement of his estate 
after his death, he is mentioned as having inherited 
property in Stratford upon Avon, Old Stratford, 
Bishopton, and "Welcombe. These properties in 
Bishopton and "Welcombe may have been a por- 
tion of land bestowed iipon the late " ante-cessor " 
who had served Henry YII. 

In 1578 the Asbyes property was mortgaged. 
In 1579 John Shakespeare and Mary Arden sold 



180 NOTE. 

their Snitterfield " farms and messuages " to Eob- 
ert Webbe. This was undoubtedly done to raise 
money for the redemption of Asbyes. "When 
Edmund Lambert peremptorily refused to give 
up the estate until he received all other moneys 
due, the blow must have been a severe one. Ed- 
mund had married Joan Arden, who received only 
a small portion of the estates of her father in 
comparison with Mary Shakespeare. But, in spite 
of this, cordial relations seem to have been sus- 
tained. Mary's first child was named Joan ; and 
when this little one died, another born in 1569 
received the same name. A son who was born 
in the very year after the mortgage was named 
Edmund. The fact that " other sums " were due 
to Lambert indicates that he was in the habit of 
lending John Shakespeare money to complete his 
various investments. If John had the genial na- 
ture of his oldest son, he would probably have been 
slow to detect any systematic attempt to get posses- 
sion of Asbyes. It must have been to gratify his 
wife that John Shakespeare desired to impale the 
" arms of Arden " with those granted him in 1569. 
Perhaps Joan Lambert was ambitious also. At 
all events, when John Shakespeare entered upon 
a chancery suit, which lasted not only through 
Edmund Lambert's life, but into that of his son 



NOTE. 181 

John, and as late as 1598, he knew not only that 
he had lost his wife's paternal estate, but that he 
had involved himself in an endless family quarrel, 
and was deprived of his most influential friend in 
the county. It is no wonder that, wounded in 
feeling beside, he forgot all about his "coats of 
armour," until he was again able to sustain them 
properly. 

He would naturally wish to atone to his wife 
for the loss of her property. He had lived in one 
of the Henley-Street houses, and used the other 
as a warehouse for the storing and sale of wool, — 
a " wool-shop," as Mr. Haliiwell-Phillips calls it. 
He was never poor enough to sell these houses, 
never alienated a foot of his land, so far as we 
know, till he sold two small portions of land to two 
of his neighbours for their convenience in 1596-97. 

Soon after his troubles began, I think, he must 
have removed to some property outside the town 
limits, leaving his daughter Joan in the Henley- 
Street house, and having fitted up the rooms over 
the wool-shop for the use of Shakespeare and his 
wife and family. 

Writing in 1709, Eowe says that " John Shak- 
spere was a considerable dealer in wool, who could 
do no better by his oldest son than to bring him 
up to his own employment.'* 



182 NOTE. 

What more natural than that he should take 
charge of the wool-shop, and then, in English 
fashion, have his apartments over his place of 
business ? If so, the " doors of interior communi- 
cation," which are described as still existing be- 
tween the two Henley-Street houses, would have 
had a very natural origin ; and it would be easier 
to understand why in all documents the poet is 
always mentioned as " William Shakspere of Strat- 
ford." It is quite clear that he never relinquished 
his residence. 

It seems to me, however, that the legal paper 
numbered 11, and dated July, 1609, in the fore- 
going list, offers some support to my view. This 
paper is a conveyance of property adjoining and 
bounded by the " wool shop." It is No. XXX. 
of Halliwell-Phillips's Documentary Appendix. 
In it appears the following descriptive sentence : 
" betweene the tenement of Thomas Hornbie on 
the easte parte, and the tenement ' late ' of William 
Shakspere on the weste parte." 

Mr. Halliwell-Phillips says that although the 
insertion of the word " late " is doubtless a clerical 
error, it is right to draw attention to the fact that 
it is an " interpolation ; " that is, it was inserted 
by the clerk, after the document was completed, 
above the line. 



NOTE. 183 

Now how is it possible that such an insertion 
should be an oversight ? And if so, why should 
it be repeated rather than corrected in another 
conveyance of the same estate in 1613. It is a 
proper legal phrase to designate not ownership but 
tenancy, well recognized as such at least in this 
country ; and if WiUiam Shakespeare were the last 
prominent townsman who had occupied the house 
for any number of years, it would be the natural 
expression for the clerk to employ. 

When these words were written, in 1609 and 
again in 1613, Shakespeare was alive and living 
at !N"ew Place, which he had purchased twelve 
years before the first entry. I could point to more 
than one instance where the phrase "late of" 
refers to a tenancy, which had expired thirty years 
before the words were written. 

As far as can be inferred from known facts, 
Anne Hathaway was an orphan, whose connection 
with Shottery has been assumed ; and in that case 
her proper home in her husband's enforced ab- 
sence would have been in the premises where he 
had helped to carry on his father's business, and 
in the protecting neighbourhood of his family. 



CONCLUSION. 
THE NEW POINTS. 



CONCLUSION 

THE NEW POINTS. 

Theee are several instances of repetition in this 
volume, but they are intentional. In making a 
new impression it is well to repeat evidence at 
every point where it can be supposed to have a 
natural bearing, and I have not shrunk from 
doing so. 

I believe I have made several new points, but 
I may be mistaken. I wish to recapitulate them 
here, not so much to assert any claim to them, as 
to relieve the authors quoted in my pages from 
such responsibility for them as the general state- 
ment may seem to impose : — 

1. I have given the history of the "coat of 
armour " in such a way as to make the application 
for it throw light on John Shakespeare's personal 
circumstances and standing. I cannot help think- 
ing that the persistence with which this applica- 
tion was pressed, after the mortgage of Asbyes 
made it impossible to take up the first patent. 



188 CONCLUSION. 

indicates more connection between the application 
and John Shakespeare's circumstances than is at 
first apparent. He may have angered the county 
gentlemen by his first application ; and a willing- 
ness to see him defeated may have induced men 
of " wealth and ability " to stand by Edmund 
Lambert in what now seems a most unjust use of 
power. The second grant was made in 1596, and 
directly after Shakespeare files a bill "for the 
recovery of Asbyes." In this bill, he asks the 
protection of the court, stating that as regards this 
suit he stands almost alone, while his nephew is 
supported by men of " wealth and ability." It 
is not strange if this went on, and the whole 
county took occasion to sneer at the " new coat," 
that the poet took his revenge when the " Merry 
Wives of Windsor" came out in the next year, 
1598 ; nor that his father insisted on permission 
to impale the arms of Arden in 1599. 

2. I suggest that John Shakespeare went into 
the country, or at least into a suburb of Stratford/ 
leaving the poet's family in the Henley-Street 
house, perhaps to attend to his town business. I 
think I find confirmation of the suggestion in legal 
phrases used during Shakespeare's lifetime and 
after his death. 

3. I draw attention to the fact that Anne 



CONCLUSION. 189 

Hathaway could not have been the daughter of 
Eichard Hathaway of Shottery. 

4. I make some new suggestions as to the erec- 
tion and inscribing of the Stratford monument. 

If these four suggestions, and some others of 
minor import to be found in these pages, are 
deemed unworthy of serious consideration, I shall 
not be sorry that I brought them forward. N"o 
house was ever built without a scaffolding, which 
is easily torn away when the builder's work is 
complete. These suggestions are the timbers by 
the aid of which I would rear a living structure. 
If they do not serve, let them fall. 

In conclusion, I desire gratefully to acknowl- 
edge that but for the unparalleled labour of Mr. 
Halliwell-Phillips it would not have been pos- 
sible for any scholar out of England to venture 
any suggestion in the hope that it might prove 
of value. 



INDEX. 



INDEX. 



ABERDEEN", 54. 

Addenbroke, John, 59, 166. 

Arden, Agnes, second wife of Rob- 
ert, her will and inventory of 
property, 163. 

, Alice, 14, 163. 

, Robert, his lease of land at 

Snitterfield to Richard Shake- 
speare, 13, 109, 172; his ances- 
try and social rank, 14 ; the 
terms of his will and disposition 
of his property, 14, 15, 163 ; his 
conveyance of property to his 
daughters, 172. 

Asbyes, estate of, inherited by 
Mary Arden, 14, 163; its mort- 
gage by John Shakespeare, and 
subsequent suit for its recovery, 
21, 28, 111, 113, 173, 179, 181, 
188; proposed settlement of the 
difficulty, with its conveyance to 
the Lamberts, 112. 

Aston, 15. 

" As You Like It," 162. 

Atwoode, Thomas, his bequest to 
Richard Shakespeare, 109. 

Aubrey, quoted as to Shakespeare 
and his knowledge of Latin, 27, 
168 ; as connected with the Dav- 
enant scandal, 56, 169. 

Ayer, playwriter at Nuremberg, 
his supposed acquaintance with 
Shakespeare, 40. 



gACOIT, DELIA, her rare per- 
sonal gifts, 103, 104; her his- 
torical studies and lectures, 103, 
104; her preliminary investiga- 
tion and question of Shake- 
speare's authorship, 104; pub- 
lishes her "Philosophy of Shake- 
speare's Plays," 105; Emerson's 
estimate of her ability, 106. 

Bacon, Francis, 30, 7*9, 80, 150; 
his probable acquaintance with 
Shakespeare, 82, 83; his sup- 
posed authorship of the Plays 
considered, 158. 

Badger, George, 172. 

Bancroft, Thomas, his reference to 
Shakespeare, 128. 

Banks, John, his mention of 
Shakespeare, 131. 

"Banquet of Jests," its mention of 
Shakespeare and Stratford, 128. 

Barnard, Sir John, his mari'iage 
with Elizabeth Hall, 74, 93. 

Barnefield, Richard, 51; his men- 
tion of Shakespeare, 126. 

Basse, William, his tribute to 
Shakespeare, 127. 

Beaumont, 129, 130, 140. 

Beecher, Catherine, 103. 

Beeston, Mr., 27, 169. 

Bell, Dr., his assumption of Shake- 
speare's visit to the Continent, 
40. 



13 



194 



INDEX. 



Bell, William, his reference to 
Shakespeare, 130. 

Benson, John, 37. 

Berni, his "Orlando Innamorato " 
cited, 38. 

Betterton, 57, 63, 77. 

Birkenhead, J., his mention of 
Shakespeare, 129. 

Bishopton, 112. 

Blackstone, his definition of yeo- 
man, quoted, 16. 

Bosworth, the Battle of, partici- 
pated in by one of Shakespeare's 
ancestors, 13, 25, 110. 

Bowell, Sir Alexander, 132. 

Branch, Lady Helen, 128. 

Bratt, Robert, 113. 

Brooke, Ralph, 114. 

Browne, Richard, quoted as to 
Shakespeare's education, 28 ; 
mentioned, 137. 

Bruce, John, cited, 39 and note. 

Bucke, Sir George, his mention of 
Shakespeare, 129. 

Burbage, actor, 28, 34; associated 
with Shakespeare, 48, 57, 60, 
148^ a beneficiary in Shake- 
speare's will, 68 ; a part propri- 
etor of Blackfriars', 120, 148. 

Burbage, John, 17. 

Burton, Robert, his reference to 
Shakespeare, 125. 

Byron, George Gordon, 98. 

QAMDEN, quoted, 150. 
Campbell, Lord, 20. 

Carew, Richard, quoted, 151. 

Cavendish, Mary, Duchess of N"ew- 
castle, her estimate of Shake- 
speare, 130. 

Cawdrey, Ralph, 16. 

Channing, William Henry, 104. 

Chaucer, 130. 

Chester, Robert, publishes "Love's 
Martyr," 52. 



Chettle, Henry, 42, 54, 161. 

Chetwood, Knightly, his mention 
of Shakespeare, 132. 

Clarencieux, Robert Cooke, grants 
"coat of armour" to John 
Shakespeare, 110 ; subsequent 
charges against, in consequence 
thereof, 114. 

Clarendon, Lord, 130. 

Clayton, John, his suit at law with 
Shakespeare, 52. 

Cohn, cited, 39. 

Cokaine, Aston, his estimate of 
Shakespeare, 127. 

Collier, Payne, cited, 148. 

Collins, Francis, 67, 68. 

Collyer, Robert, 27. 

Combe, Mrs. George, 81. 

, John, his legacy to Shake- 
speare, 64, 174. 

, Thomas, 68. 

, William, 53, 158, 174; in- 
volves Shakespeare in attempt 
to enclose common-fields at Strat- 
ford, 64. 

" Comedy of Errors," produced at 
Gray's Inn, 44. 

Condell, associated with Shake- 
speare at Blackfriars', 60; a ben- 
eficiary in Shakespeare's will, 
68 ; with Heminges produces the 
Plays after Shakespeare's death, 
77, 153. 

Cope, Walter, his reference to 
Shakespeare, 126. 

Copenhagen, Shakespeare's sup- 
posed visit to, 36. 

Cotes, Thomas, 152. 

Coventry, the "Mysteries" at, 
19, 25. 

Cowley, Abraham, 123; his men- 
tion of Shakespeare, 131. 

Cranbourne, Lord, 126. 

Crown, J., quoted, 139. 



INDEX. 



195 



J)ANIEL, 149, 150. 
Davenant, actor, 63. 

, John, terms of his will as bear- 
ing upon the Davenant scandal, 
56, 57. 

, Mrs., the scandal connecting 

her name with Shakespeare, and 
its refutation, 55, 56. 

, Sir William, Shakespeare's 

godson, his birth, 55; his trib- 
ute to Shakespeare, 57, 138. 

Davies, John, quoted, 50, 140, 151 ; 
mentioned, 132. 

Denham, Sir John, his mention of 
Shakespeare, 129. 

" Diaphantes," its mention of 
Shakespeare's tragedies, 139, 
150. 

Digges, Leonard, quoted as to 
Shakespeare's ability, 152, 155. 

Donelly, Mr., quoted as to Shake- 
speare's birth and education, in 
support of the Baconian theory, 
vi. 

Dowdall, cited, 169. 

Drayton, his intimacy with Shake- 
speare, 66 J mentioned, 149, 
151. 

Dresden, early performance of 
Shakespeare's Plays at, 40. 

Drummond, Sir William, his men- 
tion of Shakespeare, 127. 

Drj^den, 123; his estimate of 
Shakespeare, 131; cited, 170. 

Dugdale, Sir William, his mention 
of Shakespeare, 130. 

PLIZABETH, QUEEN, 30, 44, 

160-162; her death, 54, 160. 

Ellsmere, Lord Chancellor, 148. 

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, his inter- 
est in Delia Bacon and her inves- 
tigations, 104-106. 

Essex, Earl of, his expedition to 
Ireland, 51, 160 ; complimentary' 



allusion to in " King Henry Y.," 
52, 161 ; his execution, 52, 160. 

Evelyn, John, his mention of 
Shakespeare, 130. 

Evesham, 25. 

J^ELTHAM, OWEN, his esti- 
mate of Shakespeare, 128. 

Field, Henry, 23. 

, Richard, his publication of 

" Venus and Adonis," 43. 

Fletcher, John, 129, 130, 140. 

Frankfort, probability of Shake- 
speare's visit to, 35. 

Freeman, Thomas, quoted, 140, 
151. 

French, Mr.,vii; his " Shaksperiana 
Genealogica" cited, 17,52; cited 
as to the heraldry of the Shake- 
speare coat of arms, 23. 

Fuller, Thomas, quoted as to 
Shakespeare's education, 29, 168; 
cited, 169. 

Fulman, 132. 

Furness, Horace Howard, 80, 81. 

" Q.ARDEN OF THE MUSES," 
its reference to Shakespeare, 

150. 
GaiTick, David, 80, 81. 
Garter, William Dethick, confirms 

grant of "armour" to John 

Shakespeare, 110 ; subsequent 

charges against, in consequence 

thereof, 114. 
" General Chronicle of England," 

its reference to Shakespeare, 

151. 
Getly, Walter, 53, 117, 174. 
Gildon, 56. 
Globe Theatre, the, built, 51, 120 j 

destroyed by fire, 63. 
Gower, Lord Ronald, 36. 
Greene, J,, 65. 
, Robert, his jealousy of Shake- 



196 



INDEX. 



speare, 37, 42 ; his travesty on 
"Henry VI.," 42; his death, 
42. 

Greene, Thomas, 59 ; extracts from 
his diary in regard to Shake- 
speare's connection with tlie at- 
tempted enclosure of common- 
fields at Stratford, 64, 65. 

Gi'eville, Sir Edward, concerned 
with John Shakespeare in an ac- 
tion against Stratford, 24. 



JJABBINGTON", WILLIAM, his 

mention of Shakespeare 
quoted, 128. 

Hall, Dr., Shakespeare's son-in- 
law, 33, 39, 63, 69, 70, 72, 85, 93; 
his marriage to Susannah Shake- 
speare, 58 ; his worth of char- 
acter, 73 ; his death, 73 ; his liter- 
ary work, 73, 75; his nervous 
temperament as inherited by his 
daughter, 75. 

, Edmund, 110. 

, Elizabeth, granddaughter of 

Shakespeare, her birth, 58, 93; 
her first marriage, 74, 93 ; her se- 
cond marriage, 74, 93 ; her ner- 
vous temperament inhei'ited from 
her father, 75 ; her death, 76, 93. 

, Emma, 110. 

, Susannah. See Susannah 

Shakespeare. 

, William, 76, 77. 

Halle, early performance of "Mer- 
chant of Venice " at, 40. 

Halliwell-Phillips, J. O., cited or 
mentioned, vii, x, 17, 18, 31, 41, 
43, 53, 55, 56, 58, 66, 85, 97, 132, 
149, 169, 179, 189; his opinion as 
to the illiteracy of Shakespeare's 
parents, 20 ; cited as to the early 
occupation of Edmund Shake- 
speare, 20 ; cited in regard to the 



leasing of tithes at Stratford, 46 ; 
as an authority on Shakespeari- 
an matters, 107; his ''Outlines 
of the Life of Shakspere," its 
merits and defects, 145-147 ; ab- 
stracts from, 148-159, 103-175; 
cited with evidence of Shake- 
speare's authorship, 159. 

"Hamlet," supposed origin of 
Shakespeare's delineation of the 
character, 36 ; fraudulent at- 
tempts upon the play, 53; by 
whom acted during Shake- 
speare's time, 57. 

Harbert, Sir William, his reference 
to Shakespeare, 128. 

Harrington, Sir John, his transla- 
tion of " Orlando," 38. 

Harte, Mary, cited as to the organi- 
zation of " Shakespeare's boys," 
171. 

, William, Shakespeare's 

nephew, 20. 

Harvey, Gabriel, quoted, 137. 

Hathaway, Anne, her marriage to 
William Shakespeare, 31, 164 ; 
uncertainty as to her parentage, 
32, 93, 16^3, 183, 188; provision 
for her in Shakespeare's will, 67, 
68, 85 ; her death, 73 ; our igno- 
rance in regard to her married 
life, 85; her grave, 85; date of 
her birth, 93. 

— — , Richard, supposed father of 
Anne, 32, 110, 163 ; his will, no 
mention therein of Anne as his 
daughter, 163. 

Hearne, 56. 

Heminges, associated with Shake- 
speare at Blackfriars', 60; a ben- 
eficiary in Shakespeare's will, 
68; with Condell produces the 
Plays after Shakespeare's death, 
77, 153. 

Henrietta Maria, Queen, enter- 



INDEX. 



197 



tained at New Place by Eliza- 
beth Hall, 74. 

Henslowe produces "Henry VI.," 
41. 

Herringman, Martyn, 138. 

Heywood, Thomas, 51, 54, 126; 
his verses published under Shake- 
speare's name, 61; his mention 
of Shakespeare, 128 

Holland, Hugh, quoted, 140. 

, Samuel, his criticism 

Shakespeare, 130. 

Horneby, 59. 

Howell, James, his criticism 
Shakespeare, 137. 



of 



of 



TNGLEBY, Dr., vii; his "Cen- 
turie of Prayse " cited, 123- 
133. 

TAGGARD, his fraudulent use of 
Shakespeare's name in publica- 
tion of Heywood's verses, 61. 

James I., King, 30 ; grants license 
to Shakespeare, 54. 

James, Richard, 125. 

Johnson, Gerard, his monument to 
Shakespeare at Stratford, 69-71, 
130. 

Jonson, Ben, 72, 82, 123, 125, 150, 
151; cited as to Shakespeare's 
knowledge of the languages, 27, 
82 ; criticised by Kempe, 28 ; as- 
sisted by Shakespeare in procur- 
ing the acceptance of "Every 
Man in His Humour," 45 ; Shake- 
speare's intimacy with, 47, 48, 
66, 82; his testimony as to 
Shakespeare's authorship of the 
Plays, 78 ; his eulogy of Shake- 
speare in the "Discoveries," 
79, 80, 151; his criticism of 
Shakespeare's dramatic art, 127; 
his tribute to Shakespeai*e after 



death, 154; his biographical no- 
tice of Shakespeare, 167. 
" Julius Cassar," mention of Shake- 
speare in its prologue, 131. 



J^EMBLE, FANNY, 81. 

Kempe, his criticism of Shake- 
speare, 28, 39 ; associated with 
Shakespeare in his Plays, 44. 

Kenilworth, 25. 

"King Henry Y.," the subject of 
fraudulent attempts to print, 52. 

"King Henry VI.," Shakespeare's 
first play, its production by 
Henslowe, 41; its appearance in 
First Folio, 157. 

" King Henr}^ VIII.," 15; produced 
at the Globe, 63, 162. 

" King Lear," its production before 
King James, and its subsequent 
publication, 58, 139. 



J^AMBERT, EDMUND, holds 
real-estate mortgage from John 
Shakespeare, 21, lio. 111, 172, 
180; John Shakespeare's bill of 
complaint against, 172; his mar- 
riage to Joan Arden, 180. 

, John, his action in regard 

to mortgage held by his father 
on John Shakespeare's property, 
21, 173. 

Lane, excommunicated for slander 
of Susannah Hall, 63. 

Langbaine, Gerard, quoted as to 
Shakespeare's knowledge of the 
languages, 27, 38; quoted in re- 
gard to William Davenant, 57. 

Leicester, Earl of, his visit to the 
Netherlands, 39, 40. 

Levi, Signer A. R., cited as to 
Shakespeare's knowledge of 
Italian, 37, 38. 



198 



INDEX. 



Leyden, John Robinson's grave at, 
76. 

"Love's Labour's Lost," 125. 

Lowin, 63. 

"Lucrece," its influence in deter- 
mining Shakespeare's position as 
a poet, 43, 98. 

Lucy, Sir Thomas, his legal trouble 
with Shakespeare, 33, 44, 46. 



jyjACHIN, LOUIS, his reference 
to Shakespeare, 126. 

Manyring, 65. 

Mariot, 138. 

Marlowe, Christopher, Shake- 
speare's intimacy with, 47; men- 
tioned, 51, 149-151. 

Marston, John, his reference to 
Shakespeare in " Scourge of Vil- 
lainie," 126. 

Martineau, Harriet, cited, 36. 

Mayne, Jasper, quoted as to Shake- 
speare's educational acquire- 
ments, 27 ; his mention of Shake- 
speare, 130. 

"Measure for Measure," 169. 

"Merchant of Venice," its early 
production at Halle, 40. 

"Mercurius Brittanicus," its 
mention of Shakespeare, 129. 

Meres, Francis, his estimate of 
Shakespeare, 139, 149, 151. 

"Merry "Wives of "Windsor," its 
production and early favour with 
Queen Elizabeth, 46, 47; its 
sneer at heraldic honours, 115, 
188. 

Mervyn, James, his reference to 
Shakespeare, 128. 

"Midsummer Night's Dream," 
168. 

Milton, John, 30, 123; his men- 
tion of Shakespeare, 130; his 
tribute to Shakespeare, 155, 156. 



Montgomery', Shakespeare*s inti- 
macy with, 48, 129, 153. 



TSJASH, ANTHONY, 68. 
, John, 68. 

, Thomas, his marriage with 

Elizabeth Hall, 74, 93. 

Nuremberg, Shakespeare's sup- 
posed visit to, 40. 



QLDYS, 56. 



" PASSIONATE PILGRIM," 

the, fraudulent use of Shake- 
speare's name on its titlepage, 
50, 51. 

Pavior, Thomas, his fraudulent 
use of Shakespeare's name in 
the publication of plays, 50, 59, 
156, 157. 

Payne, William, his mention of 
Shakespeare quoted, 127. 

Pembroke, Earl of, Shakespeare's 
intimacy with and his generally 
esteemed character, 48; men- 
tioned, 129, 153. 

Pepys, Samuel, 130, 138. 

Per rot, Robert, 16. 

Perth, 54. 

Phillips, Augustine, 55. 

, Edward, his estimate of 

Shakespeare, 138. 

Plays of Shakespeare, their great 
popularity and attempted forge- 
ries of, 49, 50, 54; their rapid 
production and publication, 58, 
59, 153 ; their production by 
Heminges and Condell after 
Shakespeare's death, 77, 153 ; 
as evidencing Shakespeare's 
purity of character, 98 ; copy- 
right entries of, 153; editions of, 
during his life, 153; First Folio 
of, its production and dedication, 



INDEX. 



199 



153, 154; Second Folio of, 155; 

Bacon's supposed authorship of, 

considered, 158. 

Venus and Adonis, its time and 
plan of publication, 23, 43. 

Hamlet, supposed origin of 
Shakespeare's delineation of 
the character, 36 ; its produc- 
tion and subsequent fraudu- 
lent attempts upon, 53. 

Merchant of Venice, its early- 
production at Halle, 40. 

King Henry VI., its first produc- 
tion by Henslowe, 41. 

Lucrece, published, 43. 

Romeo and Juliet, its production 
and immediate success, 44. 

Comedy of Errors, produced at 
Gray's Inn, 44. 

Merry Wives of Windsor, its 
production and early favour 
■with the Queen, 46, 47 ; its 
sneer at heraldic honoui's, 115, 
188. 

King Henry V., the subject of 
fraudulent attempts to print, 52. 

Twelfth Night, produced at 
Court, 53." 

King Lear, its production and 
subsequent publication, 58. 

The Tempest, performed before 
King James at Court, 60. 

Winter^s Tale, performed before 
members of the royal family, 
60. 

King Henry VIII., pi'oduced at 
the Globe, 63, 162. 

Titus Andronicus, its appearance 
in First Folio, 157. 

Taming of the Shrew, 158. 

As You Like It, 161. 

Measure for Measure, 169. 

Midsummer NighVs Dream, 168. 
Poems, their appended mention of 

Shakespeare, 128. 



" Poems in Divers Humors," 149. 
" Polimantheia," 150. 
Pope, 56. 

Prujean, Thomas, his reference to 
Shakespeare, 137. 

QUEENEY, ADRIAN", 166. 

, Eichard, mentioned, 41, 

46, 165, 166. 

, Thomas, his marriage to Ju- 
dith Shakespeare, 66, 72, 93. 

"RAMSAY, quoted as to Shake- 
speare's educational acquire- 
ments, 27. 

Replyngham, William, 65, 175. 

"Return from Parnassus," its 
mention of Shakespeare, 150. 

Reynolds, William, 68. 

Robinson, John, leases Shake- 
speare's Blackfriars' estate in 
London, 62. 

, John, minister, his grave at 

Ley den, 76. 

, Thomas, his reference to 

Shakespeare quoted, 125. 

Rogers, Philip, 55, 166. 

"Romeo and Juliet," its produc- 
tion and immediate success, 44. 

Rowe, quoted as to the social rank 
of the Shakespeare famih", 20, 
170, 181; quoted as to Shake- 
speare's knowledge of the lan- 
guages, 29 ; cited, 33. 

Rowley, William, Shakespeare 
quoted by, 127. 

Russell, Thomas, 68. 

Rutland, Shakespeare's intimacy 
with, 48; his connection with 
the family of Essex, 52. 

Rymer, Thomas, 138. 

C ADLER, HAMNET, 68. 
^ , Roger, 26. 



200 



INDEX. 



Scrope, Sir Carr, his estimate of 
Shakespeare, 138. 

Scudeiy, George, his estimate of 
Shakespeare, 131. 

Shadwell, Thomas, mentioned, 
138. 

Shakespeare, Anna, sister of Wil- 
liam, her birth, 21. 

, Edmund, brother of "Wil- 
liam, 19 ; his inherited love 
of the drama, 19, 20, 89 ; men- 
tioned, 53, 89 ; his death, 58, 62, 
89. 

, Gilbert, brother of William, his 

birth, 20; his early occupation, 
20, 89; his death, 21, 68, 89; 
mentioned, 53, 60, 89. 

, Hamnet, son of William, his 

birth, 93; his death, 93. 

, Henry, uncle of William, 14; 

his contentment with country 
life, 14; his death, 24, 44. 

, Joan, sister of William, her 

birth, 15, 20; mentioned, 53, 89, 
117; her provision in William's 
will, 68. 

, John, the father of William, 

13 ; his social rank, 13, 116, 172, 
173, 187 ; his ancestry and their 
service at the Battle of Bosworth, 
13, 165; his ambitious and ad- 
venturous nature, 14, 180; evi- 
dences of his early prosperity, 15, 
17, 109 ; his marriage with Mary 
Arden, 15, 89, 109 ; various pub- 
lic oflSces held by him, and evi- 
dences of his superiority of social 
rank, 15-17, 110 ; uncertainty as 
to his occupation or calling, 17 ; 
his prosperity as an agricul- 
turist, 17, 18, 181; appointed to 
make up the borough accounts, 
19 ; his business ability and love 
of the drama as qualities in- 
herited by his sons, 19 ; his early 



accumulations of real estate, 21, 
110, 172; his mortgage of real 
estate to Edmund Lambert and 
subsequent supposed decline in 
fortune, 21, 22, 111, 173, 180, 
181; uncertainty as to the real 
facts in regard to his decline 
in fortune, 22, 53, 78, 110-112; 
his applications for a "coat of 
armour," 22, 23, 44, 110, 111, 
113, 165, 187; French cited as to 
the heraldry of his " coat of ar- 
mour," 23; appraises the goods 
of Henry Field, 23; his death, 
24, 52, 120; his action against 
the town of Stratford in the year 
of his death, 24; is granted the 
"coat of armour," 52, 110, 165, 
166, 188; his birth and birth- 
place, 109 ; his probable re- 
moval from Stratford, 111-113, 
119, 179, 181, 188; his petition 
for change in the "coat of ar- 
mour," and social opposition 
thereto, 114, 115, 118; our com- 
parative ignorance as to the final 
disposition of his property, 116. 

Shakespeare, John, shoemaker, of- 
ten confounded with the father of 
William, 22. 

, Judith, daughter of William, 

her marriage, 66, 93; her marriage 
portion, 67 ; her length of life, 72; 
her death, 72 ; date of birth, 93. 

, Mary Arden, the mother of 

William, 13 ; her rich inheritance 
by her father's will, 14, 109, 163; 
her marriage to John, 15, 109 ; 
her death, 24, 59; her influence 
upon her son, 24. 

, Richard, grandfather of Wil- 
liam, 13; a tenant of Robert 
Arden at Snitterfield, 13, 109, 
172 ; the family of, 89. 

, Richard, brother of William, 



INDEX. 



201 



his birth, 21 ; mentioned, 53, 89 ; 
his death, 61, 89. 

Shakespeare, Susannah, daughter of 
William, her birth and baptism, 
31, 93; her marriage, 39, 58, 93; 
falsity of the scandal connecting 
her nanie with Ealph Smith, 63 ; 
her mention in her father's will, 
67 ; her death, 73, 93 ; her charac- 
ter as recorded on her gravestone, 
73, 156. 

, William, his parentage, vii, 13, 

89; his birth and birthplace, 18, 
24, 93; subscription purchase of 
his birthplace in Henley Street, 
18, 19; his inherited business 
ability and love of the drama, 
19 ; the supposed illiteracy of his 
parents, 20; his baptism, 24; his 
father's death, 24, 52; his early 
education at Stratford, vii, 24, 
25 ; enters the free school at Strat- 
ford, 25 ; his removal from school 
and alleged deficiency of educa- 
tion, viii, 26 ; contemporaries and 
commentators cited as to his edu- 
cation, 27-31, 168, 169; his ap- 
preciation of foreign languages, 
as shown in his Plays, 29 ; his 
knowledge of Greek and Latin, 
30 ; his intimacy with the conti- 
nental languages, 30 ; his appre- 
ciation of English as shown by 
his frequent use of translations, 
31; his marriage to Anne Hatha- 
way, 31, 93, 164; injustice of the 
popular view of his marriage, 32, 
33, 84, 164; his difficulty with 
Sir Thomas Lucy, 33, 115; en- 
gaged in lawsuits, 33, 54, 55, 59, 
66, 166 ; leaves Stratford for Lon- 
don, 34, 120; his earliest con- 
nection with the theatre, 34; 
evidences of his early thrift as 
connected with the story of 



"Shakespeare's boys," 35, 171; 
period of uncertainty in our 
knowledge of his movements, 
35, 120; evidences of his visit to 
the Continent, 35-41; evidences 
of his powerful patronage, 42, 
148; his "Venus and Adonis" 
and "Lucrece," and their influ- 
ence in determining his rank as 
a poet, 43; appears before the 
Queen with Kempe and Burbage, 
44; produces the "Comedy of 
En-ors," 48; living in South- 
wark, 44, 62, 113, 118; appear- 
ance of "Romeo and Juliet," 
and its immediate success, 48; 
attends the funeral of his son at 
Stratford, 44; disproof of the 
early scandals against his good 
name, 44; his return to Stratford 
and agricultural success there, 
45, 166; his wandering life, 45, 
157; secures the acceptance of 
Ben Jonson's "Every Man in His 
Humour," 45; evidences of his 
respected position in his profes- 
sion and elsewhere, viii, 45, 52, 
81, 149, 155 ; his rapid increase 
in wealth and acquisition of real 
estate, 46, 47, 53-55, 60, 82, 
113, 117, 118, 165, 174; his in- 
vestment in Stratford tithes, 46, 
47, 55, 165, 166, 174 ; production 
of his "Merry Wives of Wind- 
sor," and its favorable reception 
by the Queen, 46, 47; his inti- 
macy with men of refinement 
and social influence, 47-49 ; pub- 
lishes his Sonnets, 49, 50, 59; 
his frequent annoyance from the 
use of his name as author, 50, 51, 
54, 59, 61, 83, 140, 157; his con- 
tribution to the ' ' Passionate Pil- 
grim," 51 ; brings an action 
against John Clayton, 52; his 



202 



INDEX. 



attempted mixture of philosophy 
and poetry in contributing to 
"Love's Martyr," 52; his pro- 
duction of "Twelfth Night," 
and subsequent purchase of Strat- 
ford land, 53, 117; summoned to 
appear before the Queen at White- 
hall, 53, 160; his silence on the 
death of the Queen, 54, 160, 161; 
receives license from King James, 
54 ; appears before the Mayor at 
Oxford, 55; the Davenant scan- 
dal and its refutation, 55-57 ; his 
tribute to John Davenant, 57; 
as an actor and dramatic critic, 
57; the production and subse- 
quent publication of "King Lear," 
58; the marriage of his daughter 
Susannah, 58; rapid production 
and publication of his plays, 58- 
60 ; death of his mother, 59 ; ap- 
pears at Blackfriars', 60; "The 
Tempest " performed before King 
James, 60; produces the "Win- 
ter's Tale " before members of the 
royal family, 60 ; fraudulent use 
of his name attached to Hey- 
wood's verses, 61; death of his 
brother Kichard, 61; his later life 
at Stratford, 61, 62, 66, 117 ; his 
retirement from the stage, 61, 62, 
118; purchases his Blackfriars' 
estate in London, 62, 120, 175; 
severs his connection with the 
Globe, 63; receives legacy from 
John Combe, 64; involved in 
unsuccessful attempt to enclose 
the common-fields at Stratford, 
64-66, 175; his last illness, 66, 
67 ; terms of his last will and 
its alterations, 66-68; marriage 
of his daughter Judith, 66; his 
death, 68; his funeral, and our 
comparative ignorance in regard 
to it, 69; monument erected to 



his memory in Stratford church, 
and its inscription, 69-71, 156, 
171, 188 ; his religion at time of 
death, 72; his grave, 76; evi- 
dence of his authorship of the 
Plays, 77-80 : his connection 
with the Globe, 77, 120; loss 
of his manuscripts, 78 ; his social 
station, 78 ; his rapidity and ac- 
curacy of composition, 79, 154, 
167; his character as described 
in Jonson's "Discoveries," 79, 
80 ; our lack of personal relics of, 
80, 81; his wonderful literary 
industry and purity of tone, 81, 
82; legend in connection with 
Ben Jonson's opinion of his schol- 
arship, 82 ; his probable acquaint- 
ance with Bacon considered, 82, 
83; his supposed attention to 
classical studies in later life, 84; 
his reputation at Stratford after 
death, 84; summarized sketch of 
his famih', 93 ; his personal char- 
acter, viii, 97-99; his politics, 
99; proposed conveyance of title 
of Asbyes to the Lambert family, 
112; his supposed residence in 
Henley Street, and evidence 
thereof, 117, 119,^120, 182, 183, 
188 ; his connection with the the- 
atres, 120; Dr. Ingleby's record 
of references to, 123-133; evi- 
dences of his authorship, from 
various sources, 137-140; spu- 
rious plays attributed to, and its 
significance, 140, 157; his fre- 
quent alteration of old plays, 141 ; 
tabulated arrangement of Halli- 
well-Phillips's records of, 147; 
contemporary records of, 148- 
151; theatrical records of, 152- 
159; copyright entries of his 
Plays, 153; various editions of 
his works during his life, 153; 



INDEX. 



203 



Ben Jonson's tribute to, 154; 
Milton's tribute to, 155, 156 ; his 
frequent use of familiar localities, 
names, and phrases as evidence 
of his authorship, 158, 159; rec- 
ords of himself and family, 163- 
167 ; biographical notices of, 167- 
171 ; records of estates in the fam- 
ily of, 172-175; mention of his 
having inherited property, 179. 

Shakespeare, William, glazier, 81. 

Shawe, Julius, Shakespeare's par- 
ticular friendship with, at Strat- 
ford, 48. 

Sheppard, Samuel, his mention of 
Shakespeare, 130, 133. 

Shirley, James, his mention of 
Shakespeare, 129. 

Shoreditch, 34. 

Shottery, 32, 46, 143. 

Siddons, Mrs. Scott, 80, 81. 

Sidney, Sir Philip, cited, 39. 

Smith, Ralph, scandal connecting 
his name with Susannah Hall, 63. 

Snittertield, 22; home of Richard 
Shakespeare, 13; early home of 
Mary Arden, 14. 

Sonnets, as voicing Shakespeare's 
own experience, 49 ; their partial 
publication and attempted for- 
geries thereof, 50 ; their complete 

■ and authentic publication, 59, 60. 

Southampton, Earl of, Shake- 
speare's intimacy with, 47, 148, 
159 ; accompanies Essex to Ire- 
land, 51, 160; his recommen- 
dation of Shakespeare to Lord 
Chancellor Ellsmere, 148. 

Southwark, temporary dwelling- 
place of Shakespeare, 44, 113; 
burial of Edmund Shakespeare 
at, 58. 

Southwell, Robert, quoted, 125. 

Spenser, mentioned, 40, 123, 125, 
137, 149, 150, 170. 



Stratford, ix, 13, 43; John Shake- 
speare holds property in, 15, 21, 
22, 109, 110 ; its number of house- 
holders, 15; its several offices 
held by John Shakespeare, 15, 
16; John Shakespeare's early 
success at, 17, 18, 110 ; the birth- 
place of William Shakespeare, 
18 ; first appearance of the Queen's 
players at, 19; Gilbert Shake- 
speare settled at, 20 ; concerned in 
lawsuit with John Shakespeare, 
24; William Shakespeare's early 
life and manner of education at, 
vii, 24, 25; leasing of its town 
tithes, and their proposed purchase 
by Shakespeare, 46, 165 ; Shake- 
speare purchases land at, 53 ; its 
mention in Shakespeare's will, 
68 ; monument to Shakespeare at, 
69-71; Shakespeare's grave at, 
76 ; probable loss of Shakespeare's 
letters and manuscripts in the fire 
at, 78 ; the Jubilee at, 80 ; Shake- 
speare's reputation there after 
death, 84; its reports on taxes as 
bearing upon John Shakespeare's 
residence and supposed decline 
in fortune, 111-113. 

Sturley, Abraham, mentioned, 41, 
46, i65, 166. 

Suckling, Sir John, his mention of 
Shakespeare quoted, 129. 

npAGGARD, W., printer of the 
"Passionate Pilgrim," 50. 

Taine, cited, 36. 

" Taming of the Shrew," 158. 

Tarlton, Richard, the comedian, 39, 
170 ; his death, 40. 

Tate, Nahum, his dedication to 
"King Lear" quoted, 139. 

Taylor, actor, 57. 

, John, his reference to Shake- 
speare quoted, 125. 



204 



INDEX. 



Temple, Sir William, mentioned, 

138. 
Theobald, quoted on Shakespeare's 

knowledge of the languages, 30 ; 

his reading in Shakespeare's will, 

68. 
"The Tempest" performed before 

King James, 60. 
Thorpe, 59. 

"Titus Andronicus," 157. 
Tofte, Robert, cited, 125. 
"Troilus and Cressida," mention 

of Shakespeare in its preface, 

126, 131. 
"Twelfth Night" produced at 

Court, 53. 

"IJNDERHILL, HERCULES, 54. 
Utrecht, possibility of Shake- 
speare's visit to, 39. 

"yENUS AND ADONIS," its 
time and place of publica- 
tion, 23, 43; its purity of pas- 
sion, 98; mentioned, 125. 

Vertin, M., introduces mulberry- 
trees into England, 45. 

WALKER, HENRY, 118, 175. 

, William, 68. 

Ward, John, actor, 80, 81. I 



Ward, John, vicar at Stratford, his 
mention of Shakespeare, 84, 168. 

Warren, John, mentioned, 137. 

Warwick, 25. 

Webber, Robert, 111, 172, 180. 

Webster, his " White Devil " 
quoted, 140, 170. 

Weemer, John, quoted, 149. 

Welcombe, 112. 

West, Richard, his mention of 
Shakespeare, 128. 

Whatcott, Robert, mentioned, 63. 

Wilmecote, part of Mary Arden's 
inherited property, 14, 172. 

Wincot, 158, 163. 

" Winter's Tale " performed before 
members of the royal family, 60. 

Wivell, quoted in regard to the 
Shakespeare monument at Strat- 
ford, 70, 71. 

Wood, quoted in regard to Wil- 
liam Davenant, 57. 

Wurtemberg, Duke of, his allusion 
to Shakespeare, 126. 



y EOMAN, Blackstone's definition 
of the tei'm, 16 ; a term of re- 
spectability, 78. 



yUCCHERO, his painting of 
Shakespeare, 36. 



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